Twist of Fate
by Ludi
Summary: Sequel to House of Cards. Thinking they're free, Rogue and Gambit leave New York to find the remaining X-Men, whilst the nets of Sinister and Destiny draw ever tighter around them. Days of Future Past. Darkfic.
1. Aftermath

**Disclaimer:** Most of the characters in this story belong to Marvel. The one's you don't recognise will probably belong to me.

**Rating:** Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.

**Author note:** This story is the sequel to _House of Cards_; or the second book of what has now turned into a trilogy. _House of Cards_ was never meant to have a sequel; this continuation (and the projected third book in the trilogy) has a very different dynamic to HoC - it focuses less on the psychological drama of the characters and more on the superhero-type story arc you might find in the comics. Some of you might find that disappointing - I don't know. All I'm saying is, _House of Cards_ can still be read as a stand-alone fic, and if you want to ignore the fact that this story exists, that's perfectly fine with me. :)

Thanks to all who have encouraged me to post this and who have supported my work now and in the past.

This is for you.

-oOo-

* * *

**: TWIST OF FATE :**

**_PART ONE :_**_** DRIVE**_

**(1) - Aftermath -**

The first thing she remembered, _really_ remembered, was waking up running through the trees and the snow.

Just like that, without any seeming transition, without any precise moment where nightmare took the leap into full-blown consciousness.

No delineation between the _then_ and the _now_.

This was the nightmare, the _then_.

The heavy _thud_ of footsteps echoing down a length of cold, white corridor; the taste of leather biting into her neck; the skin-crawling sound of baying in the night, howls which could have come from hounds but that she instinctively knew were human because she would make the very same sound herself. The man looming over her with his harsh face partly wreathed in shadow, the stink of his boots in her nostrils and the shape of his heel in her ribcage like a hot blooming flower stealing the wind out of her.

_Bluebeard._

The nightmare made flesh, permeating her dreams like a bad smell, creeping through her waking hours like a shiver down the spine.

And then there was the _now_.

A girl in the snow, with sad eyes and brown hair, brown hair that was somehow mingled with white (snow?); and the shade of the face was familiar but she didn't know how or why; and besides, the face hadn't been as important as the impression of fingers, fingers and flesh on her cheek, and somehow the pattern of the fingers had dragged her in under (she had no idea where), and then the next moment she had woken up running in the snow with no destination in mind except for anywhere, anywhere that was not the place she had been before. And even _she_ wasn't quite sure where that place was.

So that was the first memory she had. Running in the snow, as though she had been born running and had run all her life.

She didn't know how long she ran for. If there was somewhere to go to beyond the trees and the snow she never found it.

She collapsed, exhausted, at the base of a scraggly tree that was dead and could offer her no protection. She closed her eyes with the hope that she would never open them again. But she did, and when she did, it could have been hours or days later.

There were people in the snow around her, the barking of orders and a stench she remembered well. The sickly sweet body odour of the man she called Bluebeard, a stench that never seemed to leave him. She saw his boots in the snow beside her; and when he picked up her weak and feeble body it was with hands like blocks of scorched wood; he looked down into her pale, frostbitten face with eyes that bulged like an insect's.

"My precious dear," he called her, with all the covetousness of a lover, and somehow she found her voice from depths she'd never known existed, said, "No," in a hoarse and broken voice.

And he stared at her. As though he had been shot. As if she'd driven a stake through him. He almost dropped her. She saw emotion on his face. Surprise. Anger. Calm. Though she could put a name to none.

"You speak," he stated in a low voice – to himself, to her. And, "Where am I?" she asked, and, "Who are you?"

There was no answer. There never would be. He turned, called out to someone in a tone of undisguised horror, "She's broken through! I want her back at the neuro suite asap!"

And that was where she went. And there began her education in pain.

-oOo-

She remembered nothing.

They asked her a million questions, but the only one she could give an answer to was her name. They asked her what had happened. Why she was suddenly 'awake'. She could only tell them those fragments that still remained to her. The girl in the snow. The fingers. The flesh. The drag. Just impressions. Nothing more.

_The girl._

_ Tell us about the girl._

_ Who was she?_

_ What did she look like?_

_ Did you recognise her?_

And they showed her a picture. The face of a girl aged perhaps eighteen or nineteen, just any other teenage girl, a girl like _her_; pretty face with brazen eyes and a rebellious mouth, a shock of white in her tumbledown hair…

_Do you recognise her?_

_ No… …_

And then started the agony. Injections. Electric shocks. Bolts in her head, static in her brain. Hooks in her eyelids. Staring into kaleidoscopic spirals, at blank white walls. More injections. Needles everywhere. Straps and gurneys and straitjackets. The sound of her own screams reverberating in her head, echoing down corridors, bringing slaps and kicks and punches. Faces behind blacked out windows peering in on her constantly. Nightmares and fragments and falling and death… …

And then one day, after what seemed like countless weeks spent in this hell on earth, he came back in. This man, this Bluebeard. He sat beside her gurney like a concerned relative finally being allowed to visit a half-dead patient.

"We cannot condition you," was the only greeting he made.

She stared up at him. She didn't understand what he meant.

"Your conditioning was removed so completely that it seems your mind has been made impenetrable," he explained in words that meant nothing to her. He waited a moment, a pause that seemed to invite her to say something, but there was nothing she could say, no question she could ask. He frowned, began again.

"The results of your psych eval are… disturbing," he told her gravely. "They tell me your mind is fragmented. You remember nothing of the terrorist attack on the Pens, nor, indeed, of anything that occurred before that."

Nothing. She pressed her lips together and waited for him to continue.

"This leaves me in something of a quandary," he spoke at last; he appeared to be reasoning out a train of thought to himself, rather than informing her of anything. "Do I continue to attempt the conditioning process? Or do I simply dispose of you?"

She shifted anxiously then, the straps at her wrists and ankles chafing like sandpaper on her raw and bleeding skin. She knew what that last bit had meant. That was the only clear thing he had said. And he smiled at her, the only way he knew how. Ugly, menacing.

"Don't worry, my dear," he reassured her with a quiet laugh. "You are far too precious an asset to be disposed of so easily. But it pains me to know that you have been thus rendered… imperfect. If you remain impervious to the conditioning process, then it is far from certain what is to be done with you. And I would rather see you dead than have you fall into the hands of my enemies."

He spoke to her as if speaking to a possession – a treasured possession, to be sure – but a possession nonetheless. Something ultimately expendable. And the only thing she understood in his words was that dark divide she had somehow come to long for.

Death.

-oOo-

The next day they wheeled her back into the place where the pain was meted out.

She struggled against the straps that held her down, even though her flesh was so rent and broken that every movement was like liquid fire in her nerves.

She saw the reclining chair that seemed to have become a second home to her, the technicians gathered round preparing the bolts to keep her head screwed in place. And she knew that this was the last time she would ever be in this room. When she came out, it would either be to escape, or in a box.

Bluebeard stood over her whilst they unstrapped her from the gurney, still struggling. He gave her an injection, a tranquiliser; she felt it running through her veins, stealing the few memories she had left from her, and in that moment of inevitable loss a blind panic crashed over her, something so terrifyingly visceral that it cut through the haze in her mind; her limbs were freed; she lashed out instinctively at the nearest lab coat, drawing blood. Somebody lunged at her, and everything went strangely quiet; there was only white noise ringing in her ears as she felt someone's neck snap between her fingers, someone's ribs crack beneath her foot.

It only stopped when she felt the sharp, spear-pointed tip of Bluebeard's prod in the small of her back, a jolt of electricity that made her scream louder than she'd ever thought possible, and somewhere far away she thought _this is it, I'm going out in a box…_

Her synapses were shot, her limbs refused to obey her. She fell to the floor, twitching, barely feeling the tip of his boot in her solar plexus, sending her skidding towards the corner.

She could have lain there. She could have lain down and died. There was that temptation. It was the sweetest thing she had ever known in all the few remaining memories left to her. She heard the disconnected beat of his footsteps coming towards her, _slap, slap, slap, _this ominous rhythm counting down the remaining seconds of her life. Her movement suddenly regained, she scooted back into the corner as far as she could go, legs flailing, nearly slipping in the desperation of her effort. His shadow advanced on her step by awful step, and her back hit the wall, and she knew, instinctively, what would come next.

"Resist would you, girl?" Bluebeard hissed above her, face and body blacked out by the blinding white lab lights illuminating him from behind. "You _are_ the feisty one – always have been. But I cannot allow you to get away with this. I made you, and I will _remake_ you yet!"

And he raised the spear in his hand, ready to plunge it into her soft flesh, and the thought of that pain again was unbearable – intolerable – she knew she would rather die than be this thing again, this thing that he had made her once and would make her again, this thing that wasn't _her_...

Yet she couldn't remember anything else but this – all she had known was the pain and the hate and the struggle – and she realised – Bluebeard was right – he had made her in his own image, it was all she was and ever would be. A monster. A killer.

And the voice that came out of her throat was inhuman as both her hands grasped the spear even as it drove down towards her. She took the pain of the electric shock as it jolted through her, even as she wrenched the rod from his grasp and cast it aside…

She lunged for him, and there was only one thought blaring out its staccato rhythm in her mind, in her ears, drowning all else out…

The only mantra she had ever known.

_Kill. Kill. Kill._

-oOo-


	2. Clarity

**: TWIST OF FATE :**

**_PART ONE :_**_** DRIVE**_

**(2) - Clarity -**

_February 2013_

The man behind the bar was called Louis. Louis as in lou-iss, not lou-ee, as was the unspoken rule between his many and varied patrons.

He was a man of some girth, yet not ungainly; on the contrary all his movements were precise, efficient, methodical. There was always a quiet prepossession in his countenance; the face itself was a slab of a face, skin the colour and texture of raw suet, hiding behind it a mind of febrile alacrity. It was his eyes that gave it away, eyes that were icy blue and penetrating. There was nothing beautiful about this man except his eyes. They took in everything with a calm equanimity, yet there was something voracious about them too. They alone exposed an inner curiosity, a hunger that had somehow been tempered by years of sorrow and disappointment.

They were the eyes Cody would have had, had he lived.

Cody had been hungry. Hungry for life. Whenever she'd seen him out of school he was either playing baseball with his friends, or by the river, hunting for bugs and suckerfish. When she'd asked him why he was so interested in the animals, he'd looked at her funny. As if to say, _why not_?

For the longest time she'd had this prejudice about him. Because he was the most popular boy in school, and she'd assumed poking down by the river would destroy his street cred. But it never had. He was too sunny-natured for that. Everything was new and exciting to him; everything deserved his attention. Cody Robbins. Always laughing, always smiling. Always so beautiful, with his dancing blue eyes.

They'd ended up spending more and more time down by the river. At first she'd helped him in his quest to catch a walleye. Then they'd given up on the walleye altogether and spent their time lying in the grass on the muddy banks talking. Eventually they'd hold hands. They never looked at each other. She'd get the funniest feeling as they lay there, staring up at the sky, watching the birds chase one another through an almost cloudless sky. A warm churning in the pit of her stomach, uncomfortable and pleasurable all at once. She'd thought that if she braved it, if she dared to look into his eyes, she might combust with it, with that warmth of feeling inside her.

So this is what it felt like – to fall in love. This feeling of floating, tethered only by this horrible, beautiful leaden weight in the pit of your stomach. A sweet longing for something you never knew existed.

And one day she dared to look at him. Into those crystal blue eyes so wide with wonder. And what she saw there was what she had always seen. The eyes of a boy who wanted to taste everything in life. Who wanted to taste _her_.

She was a hard girl. She'd learned to be that way because that's what kept her going. She didn't talk much and she preferred to be alone. She beat up the boys who heckled her with her bare fists behind the school bike sheds. That was how she survived. By pretending to be harder than anyone else around her.

It was easier to pretend not to be afraid than to be afraid. It was easier to pretend your parents didn't care about you, when really what they did was look at you with something like dread expectation in their eyes. Every day it was there, like they were waiting for her to grow two heads or something. The almost guarded way in which they spoke to her. An unspoken fear of their own daughter. Why they should have feared her she had no idea, but it was implicit in every look given, every word spoken, every touch shared. As a child, she learned to prefer a world without looks, words and touches, when all these things were tainted with suspicion and mistrust. But as she'd grown older, she'd grown to resent her isolation. Instead of cowering from their fear, she'd met it. Built up her fortress. She'd walked with a swagger, back-talked with a liberal sprinkling of swears, dressed like a boy. She became what everyone wanted her to be.

Cody didn't want her to be anyone. He just wanted_ her_.

And that scared her more than the punches anyone could lay on her.

"Why do you like me?" she'd asked him one day.

And, "Why not?" he'd asked her back. Because that was his answer for everything. Why not, when there's so much for this world to offer?

"Nobody likes me," she'd told him.

"Everybody's dumb," he'd answered flippantly.

"How can _everyone_ be dumb?"

He'd shrugged.

"Because they're only interested in what they want to see."

She'd turned in the grass to face him.

"Oh yeah? Y'mean to tell me I'm diff'rent from what everyone else sees in me? So what can _you_ see that no one else can?"

And despite the teasing tone to her voice she'd meant it, because she'd really wanted to know…

And he'd turned those eyes on her again, curious, hungry eyes and said:

"You're beautiful, Anna-Marie."

She'd scoffed, because it's what she did; but he didn't laugh, didn't even blink an eyelid and added seriously: "You're the most beautiful thing Ah've ever seen."

That was the first time; the first time she'd allowed herself to want as much as he did. Because he was more beautiful than anything she'd ever seen as well, with his angel face and white blond hair. And until that moment, she had never known that she hungered so badly.

There had been no greed, no avariciousness. How can one be greedy for what one has never tasted? For a brief moment, she understood it. The thrill of exploration that he felt slipping about on the muddy banks of the Mississippi, tearing through town with the guys, exploding his assignment in chemistry class by chucking everything into one test tube. She felt it in the gentle movement of his lips against her own, in the heat of his breath, the way a kiss could be so soft and smooth and damp and warm and scarily wonderful. With a single kiss she learned how to want like he wanted; and she learned how to fear.

Here is what Cody taught her.

He taught her that she was the first girl he'd ever kissed.

He taught her the aching loneliness of self-imposed denial.

He taught her that there are some people for whom the words _why not_ are not and never will be enough.

And so. She earned her parents' fear. She earned those scrapes and bruises behind the bike shed. She earned all the many hours of seclusion that followed her hideous baptism of fire.

The sunny-natured boy with the angel face stared up at her with an expression in his cold blue eyes that she would never forget from that day to this. It was the look of someone who had found the thing he had sought for so long; a pilgrim at the end of his journey.

Cody Robbins, lost and found at last. Intrepid explorer to the end. Pirate of the stormy seas in her mind.

And had he lived?

Had he lived he would have had eyes like Louis.

Full of sorrow and disappointment.

Rogue sat at the bar and tried not to sleep.

Hard, when she'd been on her feet all day, when her emotions had been running riot and the TV was playing a monotonous drone of a lullaby in the background. It was the 24 hour news channel. Louis had had it on since she'd arrived here. That had been three hours ago. It was now 2 in the morning.

Louis was a far from scintillating companion. She couldn't remember how much he'd said, but she was sure she could count the total number of words on both hands. Talking didn't interest him. Listening, watching, did. She'd wanted to ask him about his past, but somehow it had felt wrong. Like desecrating a grave. So she'd spent much of the time weaving his past for him.

Was it wrong that she saw Cody in him? That what she invented for him was the past future of Cody Robbins? That he'd lived on to join the M-Braves straight out of school after turning down a scholarship to JSU; that he'd asked her to marry him and she'd said no for any number of reasons (because she was moving to NY; because she needed to concentrate on school; because she'd met someone else), when really, she would have just said yes. And if she'd said yes, what would have come after? Holding hands in the Mississippi moonlight and stolen kisses and more; a whole mess of children with perennially snotty noses; but laughter, lots of laughter and love and _no loneliness_.

But no. That wouldn't do. Because she figured if he _had_ married her, he would've been happy. He wouldn't have turned into this sad, stolid dump of a man that Louis was. Would he?

So after she'd turned down his proposal of marriage, he'd married someone else. A pretty young girl from the next town over, blonde-haired and blue-eyed just like him, someone who could match all the curiosity and fire in him. She'd made him yearn for more. He'd ditched the baseball team, got his degree, made his way to Africa. Explorers. By night anyway. Veterinarians by day. Because she'd loved animals just as much as he did. No children. She'd got malaria just when they'd got to talking about starting a family. She'd died. (Can you still die from malaria? Or was it a totally nineteenth century disease?). He'd come back from Africa a broken man. Never married again. Moved to NY because he couldn't stand all the pitying looks and shattered dreams he saw back home. Here he was faceless, nameless. He could be whoever he wanted. He'd opened up his own bar, where life was paltry and ignominious. Those ravenous eyes that had once sought out _everything_ were now turned on a TV screen that regurgitated the same news 24/7.

And now his eyes were on her with steely blue intent, and he said to her in a voice like chipped granite:

_"You know, Anna-Marie, Ah really hate being cooped up in here and all, but the little old lady said Ah should grin and bear it if Ah really cared about you, and Ah said Ah did because you're still the most beautiful thing Ah've ever seen, so Ah'll keep quiet if you want me to, hon, cos the lady says you've gotta do somethin' important and Ah don't wanna get in your way… …"_

She was jolted into wakefulness by the sound of a toilet flushing. A straggly old man with a gimpy leg shuffled out and nodded at Louis. Louis nodded back, grim and grimy as the bar he was always wiping down. The spell was broken. There was no Cody – never had been. Just the woebegone eyes of a middle-aged man who was far too old to be her childhood sweetheart, the only one she'd ever had.

The bell over the door jingle-jangled. Louis looked up with the cool, curt nod he reserved for all his regular patrons. Anyone else would get no more than an icy glare.

All except Rogue, that was.

The man that walked into the room had neither Louis' bland containment nor Cody's angelic beauty. This man had his own brand of beauty, devilish, impetuous, sultry. He had none of Cody's eager curiosity; he possessed instead all the flighty interest of a man who is certain that there is nothing of importance that remains uncovered, who was willing to try everything at least once, whenever it came upon him. Where Cody had said _why not_ because there was so much to learn, this man said it flippantly – because there really wasn't a good enough reason not to say it.

He walked up to the bar with careless poise and elegance. His body was made to move that way – tall and rangy, sinuous and supple, its planes and contours as lovingly hewn as the statue of David made flesh. Even the old, battered trench coat he wore couldn't hide it – that he was a work of art, one of rare and quite unconscious beauty, hidden beneath a layer of dirt and filth, chips and scars and scratches. Many a woman had had the notion of scrubbing clean that surface, of breaking that sweet shell and finding whatever chrysalis lay hibernating within.

It was the thing that Remy LeBeau himself did not dare to do.

When he looked at Rogue there was a smile on his face, a smile at once of surprise and pleasure that he should find her there.

"Hey, chere." He slid into the seat beside her on a flurry of spice and cologne and tobacco. He lifted a hand in a gesture that Louis did not appear to notice; nevertheless he assiduously moved to prepare Remy's usual order of neat bourbon and had it on the bar in front of him in mere seconds. Remy picked up the glass and downed the contents in one go. That same gesture of the hand. The entire process repeated itself with an astonishing alacrity. Remy's second drink was before him less than thirty seconds since he had first sat down.

"Didja get it?" she asked him, her voice only slightly slurred with sleep. He patted the inner breast pocket of his trench, answered: "Yup."

He called it sweet Mameaux. She called it money. Since he was a thief, she didn't like to think where he'd got it from. Lord knew he'd been out long enough getting it.

"Who'd you rob?" she asked half-jokingly, half-seriously: she'd really wanted to know. His lips twisted; he took out a packet of cigarettes from his pocket, selected one, lit it with a lighter – an antique gold lighter, the kind that had a lid you flipped open and unlocked the sweet, pungent aroma of lighter fluid inside. The scent burst onto her nostrils and her palette, burned away just as quickly by the flame as he thumbed it into light.

"Don't ask and I won't tell no lies," he rejoined in a tone that said he had said the same line many a time before – he sounded almost morose about it. The cigarette lit. He inhaled, exhaled; he did not look at her. His eyes lingered on a point in space somewhere over Louis' shoulder, dark eyes, red on black, the only physical sign of his mutation. She studied his profile; the aquiline features, the sheer drop of his cheekbone, the sculpt of his jaw; hard angles and short, economic, perfectly-formed curves. Lips that were full and sensuous. Handsome as the devil himself. Beautiful.

She was a woman now. Not the girl that had lain with Cody in the grass by the river and killed him with a kiss. She wasn't sure she'd grown up in any sense that mattered, but sometimes she wondered whether, if life had turned out differently, she would still have fallen for this man who had brought so much tumult and passion to her life. A life with Cody, spent in the halcyon land that Caldecott now seemed to be – it would've been simple, stable, uncomplicated. But in the moment she had reached out for that undemanding life and kissed that straightforward young boy, her world had turned into one of bigotry, hatred and fear. She'd been many things. Runaway, terrorist, soldier, hero. Spy and whore. Friend, comrade, enemy, daughter. Lover of Remy LeBeau.

The woman who _loved _Remy LeBeau.

Only one of many.

That very morning, when he'd been about to walk out of her life once again, something had made him pause. Something had made him ask, "are you coming?" And she hadn't questioned it. She hadn't even thought about it. He had asked her to come with him and twenty minutes after he'd asked her the question they'd been speeding away from the Brotherhood headquarters on his motorbike without saying a single word to one another. But she'd wondered. She was wondering now. What was different? Why did her want her _now_?

The more quixotic part of her would have said _love_. The rational part of her knew the answer was more complicated, but didn't know how or why.

He'd taken her to his apartment for the first time. It had said everything about his character, and yet nothing at all. Plain, simple, functional furniture. Strangely ordered piles of clutter, categorised by type. RW-CDs and DVDs on a desk, next to a Sony Viao laptop, beside which was a pile of archaic cassette tapes. An ashtray on the nightstand – but the place didn't smell of smoke. Clean sheets on the bed. When he opened his closet she saw one of the few concessions he had given to any kind of luxury – dress shirts, jeans, slacks, shoes, jackets, a suit or two, a couple of trenchcoats. Impossible to determine the character of the owner by looking at them, except perhaps that his taste was eclectic and diverse.

She'd wondered what he looked like in a suit.

He'd moved about the apartment, mostly in silence, getting together this and that and chucking it into a backpack. Afterwards they'd sat and drank his homemade coffee. It was the best coffee she'd ever had.

"So, when do we leave?" she'd asked him. She had been eager for it. To get out of New York, this place that had held her to ransom for so long; to find the remaining X-Men, the only thing that had really mattered to her since most of them had been killed in the government's attack on the mansion over eight years ago. He'd barely said a thing to her since they'd left the Brotherhood; if anything he had seemed a million miles away. It had made her impatient.

"Two things, chere," he'd begun matter-of-factly, sipping his coffee calmly, "money; and a destination. Can't go travellin' without neither."

"Ah thought you'd have all that figured out already."

He'd shrugged.

"_Non_. Dis a totally spur of the moment thing. Still got a little legwork to figure out. Then we can leave."

The words had also told her a lot, even if they had left many more questions. Remy was never impulsive – not about things like this anyhow. Not about _business_. There were some things he didn't plan. A pickpocketing spree. What he was going to cook tonight. A drunken binge. A night of torrid lovemaking. There was no score to any of these things; he conducted as he went along and trusted to instinct that he would get it right (which he usually did). Business deals, missions, coercions, seductions, heists, cons – these deserved his undivided and meticulous attention. When you were in something for the long haul, there was no point jumping in all lackadaisical and unprepared. Being able to adlib the finer details was an advantage, but you were as good as dead if you waded in without first having made all the necessary arrangements.

The fact that he had decided to look for the remaining X-Men and take her with him – on the spur of the moment, no less – would have said to her that this was nothing more than a whim born out of boredom.

The preoccupied manner in which he had spent the day, saying little and staring into space, had told her otherwise.

Behind them, the shabby old patron stood up and finally shuffled out of the door, after a croaky 'goodnight', which Louis merely returned with his perennial nod.

Jingle-jangle, went the bell.

As soon as it sounded, Louis walked over to the door and locked it, whilst Remy downed his second bourbon and sucked on his cigarette thoughtfully. Rogue palmed her face wearily. She was excited, confused, exhausted. The day had drained her; now she was running on nothing more than adrenaline. The thought of a hot bath and a warm bed was starting to edge into her increasingly frayed consciousness. She tried to focus.

One. Money. Check.

Two. Destination.

Check that and it's time for bed.

Louis had come back behind the bar. He reached down for something, and Rogue heard the rattling of keys. It was only a second or so before he produced one and held it out to Remy wordlessly. Remy took it without a word of thanks, stubbed out the cigarette in the empty glass of bourbon with a sizzle, and slid off the barstool.

"Looks like we're set to go," he remarked, and Rogue guessed that was the cue to follow once more.

Rogue had been behind the bar before, once. That was all it had taken to inform her that the taciturn Louis was more than just your regular barman. Most barmen didn't keep an arsenal in their basement, although in these times, she guessed anything was possible. The locked doors down there had been a greater source of curiosity to her – she supposed she was about to find out what lay behind at least one of them.

The door at the end of a dusty corridor did not look different from any of the others. Louis – ever the perfect ally – was still out front, letting them get on with it, whistling a tune to the dissonant _squeak, squeak_ of glasses as he cleaned them. At least he could put a song together better than he could a sentence.

"How you holdin' up?" Remy asked her as he poked the key in the lock.

"Yeah." She shrugged. "Ah'm good."

He gave her a sidelong glance over his shoulder.

"You look dead beat."

"Yeah, well." She yawned. "Some of us need to sleep."

The corner of his mouth hitched wryly.

"Sorry. Dis guy only comes out at night."

"Looks like he don't get out much at all," she quipped wearily.

"Hm." He twisted the key in the lock – she heard it click. "You ain't far wrong dere, _chere_. But he does. Now and 'gain. A man has his urges after all."

She snorted as he swung the door open, revealing a dimly lit flight of stairs leading downward into murky depths. The smells that wafted up from that abyss weren't exactly pleasant; neither were they putrid. It was the scent of unkempt squalor, of unwashed skin and dishes, the fetid odour of damp and your typical attempt at manly housekeeping.

There was no gentlemanly 'ladies first' on Remy's part. He stepped into the void first, paused, added over his shoulder:

"Mind where you step, _chere_."

She followed him down into the dim mustiness, ducking her head as she narrowly missed a hefty bunch of cables draped carelessly overhead. It was like walking through the innards of an airplane. Ahead of her, Remy navigated the stairs with the practiced ease of familiarity, weaving past obstacles with the minimum of effort. When she finally reached the bottom, he'd been waiting there for a while. She accepted the hand he offered, jumping over the final, cluttered step that was strewn with yet another clump of running wires.

"What's your friend tryin' t' do?" she shot at him heatedly. "Kill his guests?"

Remy grinned and let go of her hand. "Well, he don't get many visitors. You should feel privileged to be even down here."

"Privileged?" she repeated incredulously, looking around and falling suddenly silent.

It seemed she had stepped into a veritable Aladdin's cave of hi-tech gadgets and electronics, lit entirely by the light of plasma screens and surveillance monitors. Wall to wall was swathed not with gold or riches, but a solid edifice of softly whirring, flickering machines. Not a single square inch of the room remained uncovered – in the midst of the clutter it was hard to tell what the place actually looked like. It was harder to move without bumping into something.

Rogue turned a full circle in the middle of the room, gaping open-mouthed at the parade of screens marching across the walls. Here, there, people's lives were being played out in blurry monochrome, mundane details of (almost) anonymous everyday routine. Like silent era movies they replayed for her in stark and unforgiving real-time. For a brief slice of time the humdrum existences of unknown souls intersected with her own.

"_Wow_," was all she could breath.

"It's somethin', huh?" Remy conceded behind her.

"These people…" she asked in a hushed voice, turning to him, "…He's _followin' _them?"

Before she could receive an answer, there was a creaking sound in the wall, and a few moments later an entire section, gadgets and all, had opened up revealing a skinny black man with a clownish, lopsided face. His hair was less afro than it was wild and uncombed, mostly matted in places and the entire mass definitely unwashed. He was small and spare – shorter than Rogue – his limbs were wiry, the muscles beneath revealing a certain inner strength. He stepped into the room jauntily, a broad grin contorting his curious face into something even more misshapen.

"Rems, bro!" The voice was cheap and cheerful, clipped yet cordial. He shook Remy's hand with a gusto that gave away his pleasure at seeing the Cajun again. Rogue watched the scene with interest, wondering at the quirky joviality of this funny little man. When his eyes finally caught sight of her over Remy's shoulder, the smile on his face turned into something altogether more serious.

"Whoa!" Remy moved aside and the little man took a step towards her, his eyes appraising her as if she were a prize piece in a storefront window. "She prettier up close and then some, man."

Rogue shot Remy a questioning look, and he cleared his throat with just a hint of a smile, saying, "Clarity, dis Rogue. Rogue, Clarity."

"Rogue, huh?" the man looked tickled. "Nice to finally put a name to a face. Kinda, anyway."

"Name to a face?" she echoed sarcastically, cocking an eyebrow coolly in Remy's direction. "You tellin' me _this_ is how you kept track me for all those years?"

Neither man looked overly concerned at her protest. Remy shrugged as if he did merely what he had to do. Clarity's expression was appreciative.

"Hot _and_ smart," he declared theatrically.

The warning look Remy shot him spoke louder than words, but Clarity merely laughed and said: "I'm kiddin', man! I know when the meat is off the menu." He turned back to Rogue with a more serious look, explaining: "Rems comes t' me with work, and I help him out 'cos I'm the best there is at finding people who don't wanna be found." He indicated the screens lining the walls of the room, their subjects going about their business, oblivious. "I'm hooked up to pretty much every surveillance system in the country – when I want to be, anyhow. Multi-taskin' is the trick t' it. Tunin' in, tunin' out. Sortin' the wheat from the chaff. The rest is just white noise."

"Clarity's a mutant," Remy added from the sidelines. "He gathers information."

"I don't _gather_," the little man corrected him testily, looking offended. "I _tune in_. I _process_."

"Like a computer?" Rogue asked.

"Not quite." He moved to the nearest machine – his gait was a kind of rolling limp – and sank into a frayed and threadbare swivel chair, tapping distractedly at a few keys. Another monitor blinked sleepily into life. "I see trends," he continued, staring up at the screen, his eyes darting as if reading data at breakneck speed. "I fix on a subject. I pick on the details. I fit them together. They converge. I see the bigger picture. I lock on. I follow." He looked back at her over his shoulder. "It's just data, information. I filter. It's all automatic, I don't haveta think about it. It just happens."

"And that's how you tracked me?" she questioned, still not quite believing the lengths Remy had gone to keep her in his sights. Clarity nodded, his eyes already back on the screen, distracted.

"Yups. Remy gave me the specs. I just filtered everything else out. When I found you, I locked on. I don't forget my filters. It's impossible to lose track again."

He was already immersed in whatever it was he was doing. Rogue levelled a meaningful look at Remy, not sure she was entirely happy with everything that had just been revealed to her. He met her gaze without flinching. Now wasn't the time or place, but they both knew she'd issued a challenge and that he had every intention of meeting it.

"How's my project goin'?" Remy asked of the man, finally breaking Rogue's gaze. "You got de stuff you mentioned?"

"Uh huh." He leaned over, ejecting a disc from a nearby tower without even breaking eye contact with the screen in front of him. "Help yourself."

Remy walked over and took the disc from the open tray, nudging it shut again before examining the CD surface.

"Got anyt'ing I can put dis in?"

"Sure. Check the back room." He waved absently in the general direction he had entered from. From the look on Remy's face, Rogue could tell that locating anything in the adjoining room was going to be a feat in itself. But she could also tell it would be useless to break Clarity away from whatever he was doing now. Multi-tasker he may have been, but not being able to be in two places at once was still a limitation his mutant powers could not overcome. Resigned to this fact, Remy shrugged to himself and a moment later had disappeared onto the other side of the hidden door.

Rogue turned and watched the little man, his eyes flickering manically as he took in every detail on the screen in front of him. Every so often he would glance this way and that at the other monitors that surrounded him, a monolith of images that would've given anyone else a headache. It was as if he took in everything about him in a curious form of osmosis. Seeing the intensity in his eyes, his face, his posture, she didn't doubt that there wasn't a thing that escaped his notice.

"So," she spoke up conversationally, finally gathering the courage to dare breaking his strange reverie, "just how much _did_ Remy ask you to find out about me, then?"

He spared her a fleeting glance, a conspiratorial smile suddenly lighting his face.

"Only where he could find you at any given time," he answered obliquely.

"And what's that s'pposed to mean?" she returned pointedly.

"It means he only ever asked me where you were, or where you would be." He paused a moment, turning to her and saying, "It isn't what you're thinkin'. The boy told me he wasn't interested in finding out anythin' else about you. He gave me a job and I stuck t' the job description. No point in doing more than I haveta, huh? B'sides," and he turned back to the screen again, "the boy obviously had personal reasons for, shall we say, _checkin' you out_. No way was I gonna get involved anymore than I hadta and piss him off."

Rogue chewed on this bit of news with more than just a little sense of triumph. So he'd been _that_ serious about finding her…

"Still," she persisted pointedly, leaning in towards him, "you musta _seen some_ things about me while ya were trackin' me. Like…"

"_Some things_," he interrupted her quickly. "Not enough to make anythin' more than the most basic assumptions, though. There are faces I could tie you to, places. Events, even. But not to people, and not to your own private actions. I ain't into all that, man."

Rogue let out a breath, leaning back a little on her heels. Despite everything, there was no way she wanted the Brotherhood or their operations to be common knowledge. She may not ever have agreed with their ethos, but she wanted their secrets safe. She owed her foster parents that much. And there was even still a part of her that thought that their endeavours might be worth something.

Their conversation was interrupted by Remy suddenly emerging from the next door room. Rogue couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him look that flustered.

"Seriously, _mon ami_, you ain't never thought of hiring a maid before or somethin'?"

She couldn't help but chuckle at his appalled expression.

"Trask's goons don't phase him, but give him a dirty room and he's brought to his knees," she murmured just loud enough for him to hear. Her grin grew wider when she saw the scowl he shot at her.

"Hey, man," Clarity swung round in his chair with an affronted look, "I'm not havin' _no one_ fuckin' around with the stuff in my room. If a thing ain't in the place I put it, it goes offa my radar and _bam_, I'm screwed. Totally thrown for half a day. It's not a pretty sight, I tell ya." He gestured to Remy impatiently. "Bring that over here so's I can look at it."

Remy good-naturedly stepped forward and handed him the disc now neatly sheathed in a plastic slip case. Clarity took it between his bony fingers, studied it for a second, then nodded, satisfied, and handed it back without another word. Rogue gave Remy a questioning glance.

"He's takin' it off de inventory," Remy explained in a low voice. "De one in here, anyway." He tapped the side of his head. "Otherwise, it's still in de place he left it in."

Rogue made a face. She had the distinct feeling that, much like herself, Clarity was one of those mutants whose powers were a curse rather than a blessing. She watched as he turned nonchalantly back to his surveillance. In his manner, in the casual familiarity he displayed with his own little world, she began to see that here was a man who was completely in harmony with both himself and his surroundings. He was one of a rare breed who had learned to cope with his powers in the only way he knew how – by bending them to his will, by making them work for him. His was a small, humdrum existence, a tiny, enclosed world – but he was master of it; he owned this sphere and everything in it. He _owned_ his powers. And she envied him that.

"You guys wanna eat, there's food in the back," he was saying over the click-click-click of his typing. "Coffee too. Sorry, no booze."

"Coffee's good," Remy answered. "Rogue?"

She obliged by following him in the adjoining room, realising as she did so that she felt more tired than she'd first thought. As soon as she stepped into the back room she was assailed by a tidal wave of fetid odours that made her want to gag.

"Don't touch anythin' you don't need to," Remy warned her over his shoulder.

It was dim in the room – a floor lamp with a low wattage bulb in a cluttered corner was the only source of light. Again, there was barely any floor space. The stove at the far end looked like it had never been cleaned. Remy walked over and poured lukewarm coffee into two grimy mugs before passing her one.

"Before you say anythin'," he began, turning and leaning on the counter, "It ain't what it seems."

"What? Stalkin' me, y'mean?" she retorted sarcastically. "Seriously, Remy?"

He didn't look in the least embarrassed at her remark.

"I had to find you," he explained matter-of-factly. "Dis seemed de best way of doing it."

He stared at her as he took a swig of coffee, waiting for her to say something – remonstrate with him – whatever.

"Ah get where you're comin' from," she said at least, after mulling it over for a while. "But Ah really don't appreciate the idea that he might've been trackin' me on one of those crazy-ass monitors he has in there. My life hasn't felt like mine for years now doing all this shit for the Brotherhood, and y'think this creepy set-up makes me feel any better?"

"I'm sorry," was all he said.

"Yeah, well." She looked away, brow creased, frowning. "Guess Ah should be used to it, huh?"

"I'm sorry," he said again. She chewed on her bottom lip, trying to stay mad at him, knowing she couldn't, not when Clarity's surveillance had brought them both together in the happiest moments of her life. She looked back up at him and asked him earnestly, "Just _how much_ did he tell you about me?"

He shrugged.

"Only where to find you when I wanted to see you."

"And that's all?"

He grinned.

"Well, he _did_ tell me you were cute… But I kinda knew that already."

She pulled a face at him, and his smile grew.

"Ah can't believe you went to all that trouble," she huffed at him, "just for sex."

"_Chere_, you know as well as I do if it was just for sex, I wouldn't have bothered," he answered humorously, swivelling round and dumping the rest of his drink down the sink as the weight of his words sank into her. "Coffee sucks," he muttered to himself, leaving the dirty mug in the basin.

"Remy…" she began, but he stopped her.

"Don't say it, Rogue. Truth is I treated it like a job. I had to track a mutant down, and I did it the way I'd do any other contract. Professionally. Efficiently. Dere was nothin' personal in it. Well… kinda, anyhow." He grimaced. "It was only _you_ I wanted. Not your life. Can we leave it at dat?"

It wasn't enough; but she knew she wouldn't get anything more out of him for now. She looked into her barely touched cup of coffee and fought the need to say _no, it isn't enough_, and that she wanted him to be honest about his feelings for her. But she knew that he couldn't even be honest with himself about them, so she half-smiled, said, "Sure," and tipped the rest of her drink down the sink too. "You're right," she bantered lightly. "Coffee sucks."

The smile he sent her way was unmistakably tinged with relief.

Fortunately or otherwise, the moment was interrupted by Clarity clattering noisily into the room.

"Rems, you got a moment?" he greeted them distractedly, obviously oblivious to the charged atmosphere in the room. "Got somethin' for ya, if you're interested and all?"

"Sure." He glanced at Rogue. "T'ink you can stand stayin' here for a while longer, _chere_?"

"Sure thang." She waved a hand peremptorily. "You guys do whatever it is yah haveta. Ah'm gonna go get us some real coffee. And a bite to eat too."

-oOo-


	3. Rita

**: TWIST OF FATE :**

**_PART ONE :_**_** DRIVE**_

**(3) - Rita -**

It'd been their turn to cook.

She'd been checking the rota on the fridge every day for a couple of weeks now, just to make sure she hadn't been imagining it. And it'd always said the same.

Their two names together, side by side.

Remy. Rogue.

She'd liked the sound of it. The soft roll of the syllables on the tongue. His like warm molasses. Hers like steel magnolias. A perfectly poised balancing act. Every time she'd walked away from it feeling stupid. Like she'd been reading a marriage licence or something. And really, she hadn't known him for long at all. Just a month, if that.

And suddenly there they'd been. Out. Together. Just them. Buying produce. No Walmart for him, thank you very much. He'd taken her to some fancy French indoor market where there were sounds and scents she'd never encountered before. For the first time she'd _smelled _food, and she'd realised just how clinical supermarkets really were. There was the shout of the butcher, the pungent reek of cheese and fish. She'd stood by a patisserie stall and stared at the cakes. There had been the warm, comforting aroma of fresh baking emanating from an antique wall oven over the counter, curling round her like a blanket. It'd reminded her of home; her mom, baking on a Saturday afternoon. Her, running towards the smell after a morning by the riverside with Cody, a scent somehow more loving and motherly than any token of affection her own mother might have shown her.

It'd conjured up something powerful in her. The need for a hug. She could hardly remember the last time she'd had a real hug.

"So," he'd said, coming up beside her with a half-full basket hooked over his arm. "They tell me dat crazy bitch Mystique is your mom. Tell me it ain't true."

Mystique had hugged her. Not often, and rarely since she'd hit about fifteen. But she'd hugged her with real emotion, real fervour. Like protecting a wounded bird from the world. Like shielding her from something real and frightening that Rogue had never been able to see.

"Not my real mom," she'd told him, unable to draw her eyes from the cakes and the breads and the pastries that had been one of the few joys of her childhood. "Just my foster mom. Her and Destiny, that is."

"Sounds complicated," he'd remarked.

"Yeah. It is."

She'd watched him point out a stick of bread; the patissier had bagged it and handed it over in a whirl of movement, quick and florid as an Indian dervish.

"Looks like you and me got somet'ing in common," he'd added as they'd walked over to the next stall. "I was fostered too."

For some reason that had surprised her.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Remy LeBeau wasn't born Remy LeBeau."

"So what was he born as?"

"Dunno. Far as I know, I never had a name – my parents gave me up when I was born." He looked at her with a smile that was mirthless. "Guess anyone would freak out if dey had a kid born wit' eyes like these."

She'd heard before that he was one of a rare breed of mutant born with an outward manifestation of his mutation; most developed them in puberty.

"But they're—"

_Beautiful_. She'd cut herself off just in time. She'd never blushed much. But she had then. Then, as now, he'd always made her feel what she was. A woman.

"What, _chere_?" he'd prompted her, and somehow she hadn't been able to help herself from answering.

"Beautiful," she'd finished. Because they were. She didn't think there was a woman alive who wouldn't think it, let alone his own mother.

This time the smile on his face had been genuine.

"Looks like we share something else in common then, _chere_," he'd said like he meant it.

It had been a humid July day.

They'd walked out on the sidewalk with their shopping, Remy and Rogue, side by side, warm molasses and steel magnolias. Her fingers had itched inside her gloves; a bead of sweat had rolled the length of her spine beneath her baggy green sweater. He'd worn a tee and jeans, shades over his eyes. He'd smiled at girls as they passed, as if she didn't even exist. The way they'd smiled back had told her that she might as well not have.

Another bead of sweat had run down her back.

"So when were you fostered?" she'd asked him, more to prove to herself that she did actually exist than anything else. He'd shrugged.

"Couldn't tell ya. Soon after I was born, I guess."

"And yah weren't ever curious?"

He'd frowned.

"Can't say I ever was," he'd returned at last. He'd looked at her. "How about you?"

"What about me?"

"How long have Mystique and Destiny fostered you? Was it before or after you kissed—"

"Don't say his name," she'd snapped with more force than she'd meant. "Please."

He'd stared at her a long moment but said nothing.

xxx

Devil's kitchen.

He'd been more at home there than anywhere else in the mansion.

Sharing jokes with her over a steaming pot of gumbo and making her laugh so hard she'd double over. He'd taught her as they went along, but even after she'd never really got the hang of it.

Sometimes he'd have so much going on the room itself would turn into an oven. He had been the best cook out of their little mutant family by far. He'd rarely talk about the people back home, but he'd tell her about his nanny, Tante Mattie. She'd taught him everything he knew about many things, but most of all about food, which, if done right, could be just as pleasurable as sex.

There came a time where she'd stop blushing around him. Where she'd banter back about things she didn't know about.

He'd weighed, sampled, chosen ingredients. She'd mixed, ground, chopped. He'd tasted and added. She'd basked in his reflected glory when everyone had come up and asked for seconds.

Secret celebratory coffee and dessert for two.

And then the week had been over, and it had been back to waiting on the rota once more.

-oOo-

It was 4 a.m. by the time they got back to Remy's apartment.

As soon as they got through the door she collapsed face-first onto his bed.

"Ah'm beat," she groaned into the comforter, kicking off her boots with a _thud-thud_ onto the unpolished wooden floor below.

"Get some sleep, _chere_," he told her – she heard the whirr of the laptop starting up on the nearby desk. "It's been a long day. I'll take de sofa," he added quickly.

"The hell you will, Cajun," she threw back at him. "Yah probably won't sleep tonight anyhow," she muttered as an afterthought. From the computer he gave a comical grunt of assent.

She wondered what was going on with him. Most of the day she'd held back and let him get on with it, asking no questions (where she could bear not to), allowing him to move through whatever one track quest he appeared to be on. She'd just stood back and let it happen. Part of it had been the knowledge that he'd have to level with her at some point. The greater part of it had been curiosity – seeing how far he was willing to go, how invested he was in all this. As to what was driving him forward and keeping him so insanely focused – that was the greater part of the mystery. It tugged at her even as sleep did.

"So," she spoke up again after a moment, swivelling onto her back and propping herself up on her elbows. "What exactly was it Clarity gave you?" She peered over his shoulder at the laptop screen, seeing a mashup of information – data, images, diagrams. "Has he been trackin' down X-Men?"

"Uh huh."

"Cos if we're gonna go look for them, we need a good lead, right?"

She could just about see his smile reflected in the screen. "Exactly."

She digested this slowly.

"Irene said some of the X-Men were still active," she murmured slowly. "She saw Logan, she said. Ah wish Ah'd asked her more about it – anythin' that could've given us a clue as to where they might be. But… Ah don't think she even really knew for sure herself."

He paused and scooted round on his stool, looking at her quizzically.

"Irene saw Logan? Did she mention anyone else?"

"Yeah. Magneto. But that was before he was apprehended and was still causin' havoc in the City."

"Y' think Mags counts as an X-Man?" he asked her wryly.

"Ah guess not. But Ah doubt the old hostilities stand, considerin' the circumstances." She yawned heavily, pinching the bridge of the nose and massaging the pain between her eyes. Gawd, she was tired…

"Rogue, get some sleep, _chere_," he ordered her, swivelling back round again. "I'll fill you in on what I find in the mornin'."

"But Ah wanna help," she protested, only for the sentence to be curtailed by another yawn. He grimaced at her.

"You're not gonna be much use snorin' on de keyboard. B'sides, dis won't take long. Gimme a half hour and I'll join you."

"Ugh!" She sank back down onto the bed. "Fine! Ah'll go to sleep!" And honest to God she didn't really think she could keep her eyes open another moment…

She rolled onto her side and slid her hand under the pillow. Nice and cool. Enfolding her in the scent of him. Lulling her already towards sleep…

"G'night, Rogue," she heard him murmur.

"Goodnight, Remy," she mumbled back, and the darkness fell.

She drifted in and out of sleep, hearing the soft clack of fingers on keyboard, seeing his blue-tinted shadow cast against the wall. Then the weight of him settling onto the bed beside her, his silence, the warmth of his gaze running along her back like a touch. Her name a whisper on his lips, neither a question or a statement – perhaps just a reaffirmation that she was there at all.

Perhaps a dream. She did not answer, and nothing more was said.

It seemed like only a few minutes had passed when he shook her into wakefulness.

"Time t' wake up, _chere_," he was saying. "We're goin' to Chicago."

She groaned and turned over, surprised to find herself squinting in bright sunlight.

"_Chicago_?" she croaked.

"Yup. He's tracked Logan there."

She sat up quickly, fully awake.

"He's in _Chicago_?"

Above her, Remy nodded. "Seems so. Looks like Irene was right. Sure wish we had her insight right now," he mused dryly.

"Hm." Somehow, the last thing Rogue wanted now was for Irene to be here with them. Even if it did mean that they could add more names to the list of surviving X-Men. "He's… he ain't been incarcerated then?" she ventured with trepidation.

"_Non_. Seems he's gone underground, causin' trouble for Trask and the government when he can. Pretty much like us, I guess. Guy's a ghost though. Nothin' solid on him, just that he's in the Chicago area. S'gonna be like lookin' for a needle in a fuckin' haystack when we get there, but hey…" And he shrugged.

Rogue found herself releasing an uneasy breath. This was all happening so fast…

"And just how long didja have Clarity workin' on this?" she questioned him curiously.

"A while," he admitted. "Pretty much after I recovered from dat crazy shit down at de Hound Pens."

So he _had_ been planning this…

"And yah didn't say anythin'?"

He gave her a long look.

"I know how much dis means to you, _chere_. I didn't want to end up disappointin' you. I had t' be sure we would have somethin' to chase first." He held the look for a long moment before breaking it and pushing himself off the bed. "Now we do, dere's no point in hanging around here now." He shrugged a light sweater over his head, then stopped and looked at her. "You sure you still wanna do dis?"

"Does a bear shit in the woods?" she retorted incredulously. He grinned.

"Just had to make sure, _chere_."

"Holy hell, Cajun, even if there wasn't anythin' to look for, there's no way in hell Ah'd go back to the Brotherhood. Not even if yah kicked me out!"

He laughed at the horrified look on her face.

"Would be pretty shitty of me, if I did," he remarked, eyebrow raised.

"Ah dunno. You might do. If yah got bored of me."

"Bored?" He looked amused. "We haven't even started de fun and games yet, _chere_. We got a while b'fore I get bored."

"Hah, so you admit it. You _will_ get bored." She pouted at him. "Ah knew it!"

"_Chere_," he began meaningfully, "keep doin' dat pouty t'ing wit' your lips and I will _never_ get bored of you."

Their banter was interrupted by the sound of his cell phone going off; he passed her a comical look before taking the call.

"Hey. Yeah, I checked it. Yup, we got a location. Chicago. Uh huh. Yups. We'll keep in touch. Catch y'later." He ended the call and set down the phone.

"Clarity?" she asked.

"_Oui_. Just wantin' to know he delivered the goods. Not much point really. He always does."

"So what else did you guys discuss while Ah was out gettin' dinner yesterday?" she queried as she watched him move about his room, gathering a few belongings and packing them into his carryall. He didn't even halt.

"Oh, jus' a side project I'm workin' on. Nothin' important."

"Hm." His tone was level, even, betraying nothing; but she knew from experience that there was more than he was letting on. Still, she didn't push it. If he wasn't ready to talk to her about it, she didn't want to make an issue of it. He held his cards close, she knew that. Always waited until the right moment to make his move, when he had all options covered and all the variables figured. She really didn't think he even realised it anymore.

Rogue slid off the bed, realising she'd slept in her clothes.

"Gonna haveta take a shower…" she sighed mostly to herself.

"Figured," he spoke up, still busying himself with packing. "But don't take too long, _chere_. Don't wanna be hanging round here for much longer."

"S'ok," she replied, standing up and going for the one carryall she'd brought with her. "Ah ain't got a thing to pack. When Ah'm out, Ah'll be ready." She picked out some underwear and a fresh set of clothes.

"Did you only bring your gear wit' you?" he asked with a raised eyebrow, as he saw her pull out black leather pants and a black sweater.

"Pretty much. Thought Ah'd be needing it, y'know."

"Hm. I guess. But I hope you ain't thinkin' dat's all you're gonna wear."

"Oh really?" she quipped sarcastically as she walked to the bathroom. "And here Ah was, thinkin' you preferred me when Ah wasn't wearin'_ anythin'_."

She'd slipped inside the bathroom and closed the door before he could even think of a witty reply.

-oOo-

August.

She'd sat out on the veranda with a Harlequin romance on her lap and a chilled glass of lemonade beside her. She'd risked gloveless hands and a sleeveless white sun dress. It'd been too hot for anything else, and besides, most everyone knew not to touch her. Even Remy.

She'd heard him come out onto the veranda behind her and light a cigarette. He'd been out late last night – she knew because she'd heard the purr of his motorcycle on the drive about three in the morning.

She'd lain in bed and tried not to think about it. Him in the arms of some anonymous woman, the undulation of naked bodies and the slide of skin against damp skin. Things she'd never know. Things she'd wanted so badly.

She'd barely slept.

She'd have given anything for him to just lie there beside her and do nothing.

She'd sighed and twisted her hair up on top of her head, fanned her neck with her hand. His eyes had been right there. On the spot behind her ear. She'd been able to feel it, visceral as a touch, a caress, making her burn up even more.

"Don't," she'd said, when his gaze hadn't moved away.

"What?"

"_Stare_."

"How d'you know I'm starin'?"

"Ah just do, okay. Don't." She'd dropped her hair, knowing now she wasn't going to cool down till she _got away from him_.

"What's so bad about lookin'?" he'd asked her.

"The fact that you can't touch," she'd snapped back, wanting the conversation to be _over_ or for him to _go_. "And neither can Ah." She'd slapped shut her book and stood, intent now on getting back into the house.

"So you'd _want_ to?"

There had been a catch to his voice, like he'd outmanoeuvred her after eight weeks of needful looks and flirtatious banter. She's swivelled round to face him, him in just his vest and his jeans and a fine sheen of sweat on skin that was as tanned as hers was lily white. She had been so hot and bothered that she hadn't cared what he said or what he thought, because really, who _wouldn't _want to touch him when he looked like _that_?

"So what if Ah did?" she'd said.

"So?" He'd raised an eyebrow. "Maybe you should be askin' yourself dat question, _chere_."

"Ah do," she'd admitted acidly. "And the answer's always the same – even if Ah could touch yah, you'd still be out every other night lookin' for fun somewhere else."

She'd wished he hadn't been standing by the door so that she didn't have to go past him. She'd wished anything but having to go near him with this much skin bared, even if she _had _dressed like this to make him look at her, to make him wish he'd spent the night with _her_ and not somebody else. She'd _wanted_ him to want something he couldn't have and suffer for it because she couldn't have it either.

Nevertheless she'd swept past him and managed to get to the door when he'd said it.

"Rogue."

He couldn't have stopped her. He couldn't have touched her arm without being knocked flat out. But the way he'd said her name had been more than enough to stop her in her tracks. She'd turned in the doorway to see that there hadn't even been that usual lazy, indolent smile on his face.

"You know we don't have to touch, right?" was all he'd said. Simple and matter-of-fact and telling it like it was. She'd swallowed.

"Don't," she'd half whispered.

"I've thought about it, and I know we can work dis out. You've thought about it too, haven't you."

Her heart had leapt into her mouth. She'd turned abruptly and pushed at the handle.

"Rogue."

He'd been right behind her this time, the heat of his palm hovering just inches away from her waist and somehow she'd hesitated, she'd turned again and faced him. He'd never stood this close to her. He'd never dared.

"I really – I really want to try," he'd murmured. "Do you?"

She'd pursed her lips shut for fear of her answer, and he'd continued with an earnestness she'd never heard in him before.

"Even when I'm wit' someone else I keep wonderin' what it'd be like to be wit' you."

She'd been so hot she could've sworn she was going to burn to ash…

"_Don't_," she'd pleaded in a strangled voice.

"Stop sayin' dat. I _do_. I think about makin' love to you, about all de ways we could slot each part of us together without either of us hurtin' the other, and you know I'm only tellin' you dis right now because you know what I'm talkin' about, because you think about de same thing too."

"_Don't!_" she'd gasped, her hand trembling on the handle behind her but still unable to push it, still unable to turn away from his sweet, intoxicating words, from the way they'd made her _burn_…

"De only reason I spend time wit' anyone else is because I can't stop thinkin' about bein' wit' you," he'd continued as if he was unable to stop now. "Every bone in my body tells me dere ain't a woman who could compare to you, Rogue."

"_Remy_…"

She'd reached out then and placed a hand on his chest. A part of her had wanted to hold him back; but even more she had simply wanted to _feel_ him. No word she could've said would have silenced him; but her touch did. They'd both stood there for what seemed like an age, trembling with desire. It was the first time since Cody that she'd allowed herself to want in the fullest sense. If she had dared to kiss him there and then, she didn't think he would have minded; and she knew she wouldn't have either.

"Go back to your women, Remy," she'd whispered. "Don't compare them to me. Yah – yah won't ever _know_."

She'd pushed down on the door handle then, letting her hand fall from him, her heartbeat, _his_ heartbeat, thundering violently in her ears as she'd finally turned and left.

-oOo-

Remy had barely said a word as he'd locked up his apartment for what might have been the last time.

Rogue didn't know how long it'd been his home, but she knew it had been for some years; maybe since he'd first arrived in New York so long ago. She wondered whether he had felt attached to it at all – whether in reality, it hadn't been so much of a home to him as a base of operations. The centre of his own private little web.

He'd driven them over to a particularly ramshackle part of town, parking his bike on the curb of a street lined with stores that were almost entirely boarded up.

"Ah thought we were goin' to Chicago," she remarked sarcastically as he swung off the bike.

"Gotta get some supplies," he explained, jabbing his thumb in the direction of one of the few shops on the street still open. _Murray's Guns_ ran above the door in peeling grey letters.

"So this is your supplier?" she voiced incredulously.

"Yup. Great knives. Works of art." He patted his pockets for his wallet. "Won't be long."

She jumped off the bike behind him, and he looked back at her.

"You comin' in?" He sounded a little taken aback.

"Sure. Ah might find somethin' Ah like."

He paused a moment, then turned abruptly with a shrug. A little confused at the sudden change in his demeanour, she followed behind him and into the store.

Dusty was about the only word she could find to describe it. It fell from the bell above their heads as they walked in; it lined every shelf; it floated across the room like a grey filter in the sunlight. Remy was already walking through it, stomping in his heavy boots over to the cashier desk, behind which stood a woman, polishing an antique ladies' gun.

"Hey Rita," he greeted her, and the woman looked up.

She was strangely pretty, despite the eyes set too far apart, the mouth that was too wide. Her pallor, combined with her jet black hair, gave her a certain allure. And her eyes were clever ones, shrewd and vivacious.

"Remy." Her voice was deep and low; she spoke with a casual familiarity. "I take it you're here for the package."

"Nothin' but."

He leaned on the counter, turning slightly sideways so that his gaze fell on Rogue, his face unreadable. Rita's eyes followed his, clocking Rogue with an expression of mixed amusement and surprise, the kind of look a father would give to his son bringing home a prom date. Remy saw the look, cleared his throat.

"Rita, dis Rogue. Rogue, dis Rita."

Rita lifted a black eyebrow.

"Interesting name," she remarked.

"Thanks," was the only word she could find to reply with. Rita seemed unconcerned at the relative awkwardness. She ducked behind the counter and when she reappeared it was with a wrapped up parcel in her hands.

"There ya go," she announced, slapping the box onto the desk. "You want me to order more?"

"Nah. Gonna be away for a while. Dunno when I'll be back…"

Rogue didn't wait to hear anymore of Gambit's reply. She sidled off into the aisles, her boots clomping ominously along creaky floorboards. Left and right, high and low, a panoply of weapons lined her entrance. Formidable… but quaint. Like an antique shop full of wonderful treasures. She began to see why Remy came to this place and no other.

Apart from Rita, that was.

She walked down the aisle, touching the items on the shelves with curious fingers. Like people, she liked to think she could read objects as well. It was a form of psychometry – reading the past, the secrets, the history of this and that, touching their life briefly with her own. Objects couldn't hurt. It was the people behind them that did.

She passed over the guns, the knives, the crossbows. She wanted nothing that could kill. As she came to the last shelf, her fingers ran across a smooth curve of brass coloured metal – she stopped and examined her find. A knuckleduster, old, abandoned, wedged between two dog-eared boxes of ammo. She swiped the dust off of it, turned it this way and that in the paltry sunlight, feeling the weight of it. She slid it over her hand. A perfect fit. Like it was made for her.

When she got back to the counter, Remy had already gone off to find other supplies in the store. Rita was still polishing that same old gun with an absorbed air about her. She only looked up when Rogue placed the knuckleduster on the desk with a small _thunk_.

"Interesting buy," she echoed her earlier statement, but she boxed it up anyway without any further comment.

"It caught my eye," Rogue explained, counting out the cash she owed and handing it over.

"So. You like old school. And fisticuffs." Rita grinned and shoved the bills greedily into the till. "Interesting."

"Just about everythin' about me seems interesting to you," Rogue observed, a little piqued; but Rita merely gave a small laugh.

"I'm sorry. It's just that… Remy doesn't often bring friends. And never any ladies." She paused, shooting Rogue an odd, appraising look with her blue, penetrating eyes. "So. You his girlfriend?"

There was something in the question – just a little too blasé, a little too flippant – that told Rogue pretty much everything she had already guessed.

"Ah dunno," she replied dryly. "Girlfriend sounds kinda… formal." She glanced back over her shoulder at Remy's silhouette moving between the shelves. "Remy don't do formal."

"No," Rita agreed – and this time her tone was humourless. "He doesn't."

She passed the package to Rogue and Rogue took it.

"Thanks," she said.

"You're goin' outta town," Rita noted casually in return. "Maybe you might wanna think about gearing yourself up a bit more…"

"No," Rogue cut in quickly. "This'll be fine."

Rita shrugged.

"Suit yourself." A faint smile dimpled the corner of her mouth. "Kinda figured 'armed-to-the-teeth' wasn't your scene anyway."

"Mah hands are enough."

_They've always been enough…_

"Hm." The smile on Rita's lips turned to one of amusement. "I guess that's why Remy likes you. He's pretty handsy himself." She picked up the gun and the cloth, finishing with; "Have a safe trip."

Rogue didn't bother to thank her. She turned and called out to Remy; "Ah'll wait for you outside," before leaving the store with her cheeks flaming.

xxx

She shoved the small package into her one and only bag, biting her lip to stop herself from swearing out loud. She was being irrational. She was being emotional. She was being everything Raven had warned her against. Hell, she was being everything Remy had warned her against. And that was the whole point, really.

She leaned heavily against the back seat and blew errant white curls out of her face. For lack of anything else to occupy her mind, she dug into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone. She'd set it on silent, hadn't even looked at it since she'd left the Brotherhood. Now she saw a queue of messages lined up for her. Ten missed calls, twenty-five texts. She knew who it was. Raven.

Her stomach gave another lurch. Her thumb hovered over the phone's envelope icon, only a few millimetres away from spilling out the contents of what she guessed was Mystique's vitriol. Or maybe it was grovelling, begging for Rogue to come back. Either way, it couldn't be as bad as the thought that Remy could be in a passionate clinch with Rita behind the cashier desk right at that very moment.

She swore then. More than once.

_There's nothin' goin' on b'tween them. He asked you to come with him, right? Why would he do that if he already had someone else? Why would he even bring me here? And even if he _was_ sleepin' with her, it's not like we're together or anythin', is it? Ah'm not his _girlfriend_, Ah'm just his…_

And she found she couldn't finish the thought. She didn't know _what_ she was to him.

Nevertheless, the train of thought had calmed her somewhat. In a few short hours, none of this would matter. They'd be out of New York, they'd be heading to Chicago. Everything here would be left behind, maybe forever.

She looked at the phone in her hand, the screen now sleeping. Raven's words would have to go unread. It was time to cut the strings. It was time to start anew.

_And what the hey, there's a phone store right next door_._ Maybe today's gonna be a good day after all_.

Rogue slipped the phone back into her pocket and pushed herself off the bike. She walked to the phone store with only one thought on her mind.

She was going to Chicago and that meant one thing.

She was going to be free.

-oOo-


	4. Boonton

**: TWIST OF FATE :**

**_PART ONE :_**_** DRIVE**_

**(4) - Boonton -**

A cloud of dust rose and settled as the door closed shut behind Rogue; the bell clanged sharply, then settled to a halt.

When he finally got to the cashier desk, Rita was there, elbows on the counter, head propped in hands, giving him a _look_.

"What?" he asked.

"She knows about us," was her simple reply.

"_What? _ What did you say to her?"

"Nothing."

"Then how do _you_ know?"

"I can just tell."

Under normal circumstances Remy would've taken her remark with a pinch of salt; but since he knew Rita, and since her intuition had (mostly) been proved right before, he knew enough to guess she was probably right.

"Shit," he muttered.

"Oh, don't worry about it," Rita reassured him, standing up straight and finally deciding to process the goods before her. "She'll forgive you. What girl could resist?"

He grunted dubiously. Rogue _said_ she never got jealous, but he wasn't sure that was the case.

"She's nice," Rita continued her live commentary, breaking his chain of thought. "She suits you."

"_Thanks,_" he replied sarcastically.

"I see what you mean about her. There's certainly _something_ about her. She's… pure. With just a smudge of dirt. Must be honey to a man like you."

He scowled at her. "You mockin' me now?"

"I'm not." She smiled slightly. "Well. Maybe I am just a _little_ jealous…" She packed up the last of his goods and looked up at him seriously. "Guess I'm gonna miss you too."

"Murray will be back soon," he returned evasively, pocketing the smaller items.

"Yeah." She gave a small, mirthless laugh. "Somehow, that makes it worse."

He said nothing. There was something in him, some sort of regret – not for what they had shared, not for any feelings he may have had for her, but because he was leaving her to face her demons alone. And that's all their affair had been really – them, facing their demons together, because facing them alone was sometimes just that little bit too overwhelming. He felt bad about leaving her to hers. He had Rogue. She had a husband who barely noticed her.

"Bye, Rita," he said at last, with just a tinge of sadness in his voice. She passed him a watery smile.

"Bye, Remy. You take care now."

"I will. You too."

She didn't remind him that when he came back she'd still be there. They both knew she didn't need to anymore. When he turned away, he turned away thinking that it might be for the last time.

Rogue was leaning on the bike, fiddling with her phone as he came out. She looked up as he approached her, her expression even.

"Done?"

Her tone was calm, neutral. No barbs, no spikes.

_Maybe she doesn't know…_

"Sorry t' keep you waitin'."

She shrugged.

"No big deal."

He stood beside her and packed everything into the bags at the back of the bike. She didn't move. When he'd finished, he looked at her. She returned the gaze with a hint of steel in her eyes. That's when he knew she knew.

"Sorry," he said again.

"Like Ah said," she returned softly, "no big deal."

She slipped the phone into her pocket and moved away. For the first time in a long time he was left fighting for words. He didn't like it.

"We gonna get to Chicago any time soon?" she threw sardonically at him. "Or yah just gonna stand there all day, sugah?"

He gave a wry smile to himself, as if he had been caught out by a clever move in a game of chess. He swung up onto the bike in one lithe movement.

"Ready when you are, _chere_."

She jumped up behind him and he kicked in the engine. He spared not a backward glance for Rita, or for the world he was leaving behind.

-oOo-

They hadn't been on the interstate long before the first toll plaza came into sight. For years now the turnpikes had doubled up as border control, each and every one serving as checkpoints for any mutants moving through. Passing through without the proper genetic makeup didn't necessarily mean incarceration or interrogation – but it did mean a lot of trouble, and didn't guarantee that you would get out the other side. Bribery – of any form – was the standard currency for paying your toll if you were a mutant.

Remy parked the bike on the shoulder a few hundred yards away from the complex.

"Got an idea?" Rogue asked him. She knew him far too well to expect any less.

He grinned, dug into his pocket, and swivelled to face her, holding a small metallic object between thumb and forefinger. Her eyes went wide.

"You _stole_ them?!" she exclaimed.

"I'm a thief, _chere_," he answered ironically. "Figured Forge's genius would come in useful at some point…" She raised an eyebrow at him and he trailed off, quickly saying before she could reprimand him; "I know. You t'ink I'm some kinda bastard, right?"

"Actually," she said, taking Forge's masking device from him and sliding it into the side pocket of her jeans, "Ah'm thinkin' you're some kinda genius." Her expression was suddenly curious. "When did you pick 'em up?"

"Easy. De first one stayed in my trench pocket after dat stunt we pulled at de Ritz. I just never gave it back." He grinned at the memory of what came next. "De second one I swiped one day when I came t' see you." She rose her eyebrow at him again and he shrugged. "Well, you was asleep and de rest of de Brotherhood were in a meetin'. Didn't have much to do 'cept wander around. Just happened to come across Forge's workshop."

"Hm." Her look was sceptical. "Ah'm sure you did. Anythin' else you managed to get your sticky hands on while you were hanging round momma's house?"

He fought the urge to use those hands on places he thought she probably wouldn't appreciate considering her recent introduction to Rita.

"Not'ing. Just _you_, _chere_."

He figured he'd been at least partially forgiven when she passed a half-irked, half-mischievous smile back at him. Good enough. He turned and kicked the bike into gear again.

"Act natural, _chere_, and make sure you –"

"Let you do the talkin'," she cut in quickly. "Yeah, yeah, Ah know. I ain't stupid, Cajun."

"I know. Just makin' sure is all." He picked the sunglasses from his front pocket and slid them on, hiding his eyes. "We get past here, we're _on de way, chere_. We don't turn back."

She leaned in closer behind him, her breath warm on his neck.

"Ah wouldn't have it any other way, sugah."

He turned his head slightly, feeling her breath graze his cheek, wanting something more but suddenly not knowing how to reach for it. This was the first time they'd spent so long in one another's company since being back with the X-Men, the closest they'd ever been in the entire time they'd known each other… and yet in bringing her with him something had changed between them. He couldn't quite place it.

He looked back at the road with his jaw taut. He was going out on a limb in this. To leave behind the comforts, the routine, the casual dissoluteness of his life here was a gamble. A needless gamble. A gamble in which the potential cons may end up outweighing the potential pros. Up till now he'd tried not to question himself, but now he felt it. The doubt in him, the risk he was taking in doing this thing, not only for himself, but for the girl who sat behind him, a girl he wanted and wasn't quite sure how to have. It broke every single rule. It unnerved him.

And he thought perhaps he _had_ wanted her to meet Rita, he _had_ wanted her to figure out that they were having an affair, and that she'd walk away from him, give him an excuse to stay the way he was. But she hadn't. She hadn't even asked him about it.

He was trapped in a cage of his own making, and it both scared and enthralled him.

_Dis de worst time t' be t'inkin' 'bout dis…_

He revved up the bike and sped towards the toll plaza.

Every lane was queued up with vehicles and their occupants waiting to pass through the mutant scanners. The tollbooth attendants and surrounding security seemed bored, locked into monotonous routine. It was a long time since a mutant had dared to pass through without declaring themselves first and paying whatever bribe suited the attending officer. The process had been in force for so long that most mutants chose to stay away. Many attempted other forms of crossing the state border. Remy, however, wasn't interested in running risks when he had an easier way of getting past trouble.

Forge's little devices had proved their worth before, and he had no doubt they'd be sailing through this particular barrier and on their way to Chicago with the minimum of fuss. He got to the back of the queue and bided his time, like always.

He had, of course, stolen the masking device intentionally, and he was fairly sure Rogue knew that. What he hadn't told her was that he'd spent an awful lot of time skulking around the Brotherhood headquarters that winter, stealing things of a more sensitive kind. Information, to be exact.

Raven had been on her guard with him round the house, but not enough to prevent him from finding out ways of listening in on conversations he wasn't supposed to. By the time Rogue had got on her feet again, he'd pieced together enough to know the ins and outs of the Brotherhood's various operations.

But that wasn't what he'd been particularly interested in.

What he listened out for most was Rouge's name. For Sinister's. For anything to do with the Diaries.

He hadn't been able to glean much. From what he could tell, Sinister figured in the Diaries quite a bit. So did Rogue, and, apparently, Rachel. And, once or twice, he'd even caught his own name.

_"What do you see?" Raven had hissed on the other side of the door. "What do you _see_?"_

_ "Nothing has changed," came the soft voice of Irene in reply. "I see only what I've always seen."_

_ The sound of Raven's footfalls, sharp and heavy, as she paced the floor in frustration…_

_ "I don't trust him, Irene. I don't trust him. He has us by the balls. I wish to God Rogue hadn't asked me to bring him here…" A short, irate pause, the calm before the crescendo… "He's using her!" she barked. "And like a _fool_ she doesn't see it…!"_

_ "She loves him," came Irene's level voice again; Raven's made a crude, explosive noise of disgust._

_ "He'll sell her to Essex, won't he?" Raven raved almost maniacally. "He'll sell her to that sick, twisted fuck, and I'll lose _her_ as well as everything else…!"_

_ And he thought, _you've already lost her, Raven…

_Irene's voice again, calm waters to Raven's crashing storm…_

_ "You assume too much, my love…"_

_ "But you've seen them! Him and Essex…! He's lying! He's still in league with Sinister, and he'll steal her away from me and bring her to _him…_!"_

_ "He _will_ cross paths with Sinister again," and this time there was a thread of doubt in Irene's voice, "but as to Rogue… That is still uncertain…"_

_ "…and Essex will break her, he'll turn her and twist her and do fuck knows what to her, and she'll be lost forever…!"_

_ "So what would you have us do, my love? Hide her here forever? It's impossible… Fate will not allow it…"_

_ "I'd have us do _anything_ but let that disgusting _thief_ take her…!"_

And whatever course of action he had planned before that point, it had become very clear to him what his next move should be upon eavesdropping on_ that_ conversation.

He was a fair man, and he didn't do things out of spite; but one thing was certain, and that was that Rogue was not going to stay with Raven, nor was she going to fall into the hands of Essex, whatever Irene's predictions may say. Rogue was coming with him, and he was going to keep her safe. Simple.

Or so he thought.

Because as he sat there in line waiting to cross this border from one part of his life into another, he knew that those weren't the only reasons he was taking him with her. He had other, more personal motives.

Having a warm and willing woman within his reach was one of them.

He was trying not to think about the other.

"What about mah skunk stripe?" Rogue was murmuring behind him. "Pretty sure Ah'm still on Trask's Most Wanted…"

"_Chere_, if you don't set off de scanners, dey won't look at you twice," he murmured back over his shoulder.

Logic had already told her this; but he understood her anxiety, here, so close to the crossing of this first, great hurdle. She said nothing in reply to his reassurance – he guessed she had heard what she had thought already, that he had confirmed her own reasoning. What they both knew, of course, was that calm confidence, nonchalance, insouciance – all the things he was expert at – would get them through just about anything. The key was to blend in with the faceless crowds around them. They were lucky. Many mutants would have found such a thing impossible.

Devil eyes and a lock of white hair.

Those were the only things that marked him and her as 'sub-normal'. Both could be hidden.

Like blind eyes and the streak of madness in a lonely old mutant who could see the future.

… _Irene sitting out in a back yard no one has tended to years, the pale winter sunshine glinting off the worn silver tip of the mahogany cane in her hand._

_ He lit a cigarette with the antique gold lighter that had been his first steal so very long ago, listening with pleasure to the rare sound of birdsong somewhere near and yet so far._

_ "Well done," she told him without the least hint of sarcasm. "You did an excellent job."_

_ "On what?" he asked, thinking _damn you_ and _don't mock me_ and _you're lucky I don't kill you and your lover where you stand…

_"You know what."_

_ "_Non_." Smoke in the air as he cleared it from his lungs. "I don't."_

_ "Then you will. Keep doing what you're doing, and you will see."_

_ "Fate," he scoffed. "What a crock. Dere's no way you can predict de future, not wit' any certainty. Besides, dis all rich comin' from you. De one who fucked up dis whole timeline in de first place. An' I still don' know why you actually did it. Killed Senator Kelly, I mean."_

_ "I already told you why. If you don't understand…"_

_ He grunted. It was still all bullshit._

_ A lengthy pause; the light sound of Rogue's voice humming a tune somewhere indoors._

_ "I'm takin' her wit' me," he said._

_ "I know." No surprise, no resignation in that voice._

_ "But you won't tell Raven, will you. 'Cos it may just tip her over de edge and dat's de last t'ing you want, right?"_

_ Irene's mouth was a hard line, and he knew he'd won with her. He relished the triumph like he hadn't in a very long time._

_ "B'sides, I have dis feelin'. It's tellin' me dat you _want_ Rogue to go wit' me. It's tellin' me dat your crazy predictions are tellin' you to let her go."_

_ Irene lifted her head, blind eyes staring straight at him, and for the first time there was no impassivity, no equanimity on those hard-lined features. There was something almost akin to hatred._

_ The back door opened and Rogue poked her head through, her eyes falling first on Remy, then on her foster-mother. She reached out, tugged the sleeve of his free hand gently._

_ "Remy, lunch is ready…"_

_ He threw the cigarette to the ground and stubbed it out with his heel as she continued to the woman still sitting on the nearby bench, "You want some, Irenie? Ah made some salad…"_

_ "No thank you, dear." Old granny voice, hate replaced once more by that gentle inoffensiveness and he thought, _I've got you, I've got your number…

They were almost at the barriers.

The bike in front passed through uneventfully, and then it was their turn.

No buzzing, no screaming of a klaxon or alarm. Forge's dampeners did their job. They scanned in their (faked) ID cards, paid the toll, passed through to the other side. No looks of triumph, no whoops of delight.

They sped away as fast as their bike could carry them.

…_And he was on the way up to Rogue's bedroom when he passed Raven on the stairs, Raven whose look was one of disgust at the mere thought that he was sleeping with her beloved daughter…_

_ "Don't worry none, Mystique," he couldn't help taunting her as he passed, "I make sure she has a good time. Shouldn't be too hard after all de strange men you forced her t' fuck."_

_ She whipped round on him, staying her hands with an effort and he almost laughed to see her attempt to restrain herself in the face of his jibes…_

_ "I. Will. End. You," she hissed through her teeth._

_ "No you won't. You won't do anyt'ing to make your precious daughter cry. Oh wait. You already did."_

_ He turned and when he got to the top of the stairs she shot back with a whole wealth of sadistic promise:_

_ "If I don't kill you first, Essex will."_

-oOo-

Boonton, New Jersey.

A mutant haven, some called it, although that was only the case if you had the cash and the wits to go with it.

It was only for this reason that what had originally been a small, insignificant town had now grown into a thriving city – with all the shit that came with that fact. More rats, more filth, more poverty. More vice.

A man named Devereux was responsible for Boonton's dubious success.

A bottom-feeder in New York, soon after the Mutant Registration Act had been passed he'd seen a niche and moved in. After the Hounds, the Sentinels, and the wholesale slaughter of the super-powered mutants, he'd set up shop in Boonton. The idea was, if you had enough money to make it worth his while, he could smuggle you out of New York and into Boonton, where he'd usually make sure you'd stay. The enterprise had earned Devereux enough to buy up half the town and build the rest.

The main thing was, Boonton was safe. At least for the time being.

Remy booked them into the first cheap hotel he came across, a plan forming in his mind. Boonton had been his choice of stopover for more than just reasons of safety. And it wasn't his intention to run around blind once he got to Chicago.

Whilst Rogue freshened up in the bathroom he opened up his laptop and booted up the disc Clarity had given him. He replayed the same old sound clip for what seemed to be the hundredth time.

_"You are one crazy mutha," Clarity commented from his seat at the computer, face bathed in a bluish light as he shook his head in slow disbelief._

_ "Yeah," he answered with an unconvincing effort at disinterest._

_ "So what's your plan?"_

_ "Don't t'ink I even have one, _mon ami_…"_

_ "You're crazy," he said again._

_ "I know…"_

_ He wondered how long it would take Rogue to find coffee and eats. Sometimes he didn't trust her judgement when it came to food, but he figured he'd given her enough instruction back with the X-Men._

_ "Okay, so she's hot, bro. But I ain't sure she's _that_ hot…"_

_ "Jus' play de damn clip again, _homme_."_

_ … Logan's voice, unmistakable, bordering on the feral as he growled down the line, _…and if you so much as scratch her while she's in transit, I will fuckin' tear you apart, so help me God…

_Yup. Logan for sure, no doubt about it…_

_ "Who de fuck he talkin' to?" And then it came to him… "Oh. Wait. Fuck. I know…"_

"Busy already?"

It was Rogue, fresh out of the bathroom, towelling her hair dry with something that resembled a dirty dishcloth. He barely looked up.

"Mm-hmm."

She threw the towel over the back of a chair.

"You're plannin' somethin'. Care to share?"

He beckoned her over.

"Lissen t' dis, _chere_."

She came up behind him, resting her hands on the back of the chair, leaning against the frame with her weight, and he smelled the scent of her, the aroma of orange blossom and lavender sweetened by the warmth of her skin. As he hit the 'play' button yet again he felt it – that dull ache, that gnawing hunger. Since they'd left the Brotherhood's base, he hadn't so much as touched her. Something had changed between them, something was different; but he still wanted her. She still tied knots in him, and it was a miracle he hadn't _done_ something by now. Something rash and stupid and desperate.

And then there was Rita.

_She_ hadn't helped either.

_"… I will fuckin' tear you apart, so help me God…"_

_ "Logan… _buddy_… Trust me. You've scratched my back, right? With a whole five thou's worth of crisp, clean dollar bills. So I scratch yours, eh? She'll be treated like a princess. You have my word on it."_

_ "Your word doesn't mean shit, bub. But I figure, you break it this time, I'll be draggin' my claws from your ass to your sick skull real slow, so sure… I'll believe you. For now. I'll send you the coordinates for the drop off point, and if she ain't there on time, there will be fuckin' hell to pay, and the bill's gonna be on your tab."_

The conversation ended abruptly on a dial tone. The recording stopped.

Behind him, Rogue sucked in a breath. When he glanced round at her, she looked stunned.

"What, _chere_? You surprised Logan's threatenin' to rip some low-life pond scum a new one?"

"No…" she exhaled at last. "It's just… It's _Logan_. Ah haven't heard his voice since…"

She stopped, swallowing hard.

"I know," was all he said.

For a long moment she remained quiet before suddenly seeming to regain her lost composure. She sat down on the edge of the bed and asked him, "So. What's the plan? And how does that recording tie into it?"

He turned his chair round so that he was facing her.

"The man he was talkin' to, his name is Devereux. He runs dis town."

"Yeah. I've heard of him. Raven mentioned him once or twice. Somethin' about smugglin' mutants…"

"Right." He nodded. "He gets them out of de City for a fee. Looks like Logan was payin' top dollar to have a certain mutant delivered to him. Whoever it is ain't really important—"

"But _where_ they're bein' taken is," she finished for him, and he smiled at her appreciatively.

"Exactly. We figure out where de drop off point was, we're a step closer to figurin' out where Logan is."

"So… You wanna find out what those coordinates were. Which means gettin' to Devereux."

"Right."

She frowned, blowing a white ringlet out of her face. Her hair was curlier when it was damp, but he still recognised that lock of hair. It was the one that was always falling in her face, that would always stick to her cheek when it was sweat-slickened from their lovemaking and—

"Ah dunno," she was saying doubtfully. "Seems like an awful lotta risk just to get a few numbers that we can't guarantee will lead us to Logan anyhow…"

"Yeah," he agreed, trying to swallow down the sudden thickness in his throat, "but I happen to know Devereux. Kinda. A little."

She raised an eyebrow at him. A sceptical one.

"Why'm Ah gettin' the impression that you don't know him half as well as you say you do?"

"_Chere_. I know him enough for dis t' work. Trust me."

"Ugh." She covered her face with her hands and peered at him from between her fingers. "Ah'm not gonna like this, am Ah."

"Probably not," he answered in a more sober tone. "It'll involve you gettin' in close."

"So that Ah can absorb him, right?" He said nothing and she continued; "How do you even know he ain't got one of those dampening nano-shots?"

"He's a criminal, _chere_, not CIA or somethin'."

"Yah don't know, Remy… He mighta picked somethin' up, a little extra security against any mutants round here with a grudge…"

"Doubt it." He shook his head pensively. "T'ink about it, _chere_. It ain't a contraption like Forge's do-hickeys. It's a shot. One dat's made up and administered by de country's top scientists in some secret lab God knows where. You can't just cook up a batch of dis shit for anyone. It's hard science."

"Hm." She still looked doubtful, and he scraped his chair closer to her and placed a hand on her knee; she didn't flinch. "_Chere_. I'm not gonna make you do not'ing you don't wanna do. Dere are other ways of gettin' a man t' talk…"

She looked up at him, her eyes steely.

"Even riskier," she said.

"I'm willin' t' take de risk, _chere_. If you want me to."

She dropped her hands and sucked in another breath at his words.

"You know Ah don't," she said at last in a low voice.

"And I don't want you to do anyt'ing dat's gonna hurt you. So we're at a bit of an impasse, Rogue. What we gonna do?"

There was a long pause, and he didn't remove his hand from her knee. She stared at it a while before looking up at him again and saying, "Ah'm assumin' you've thought of a way of actually gettin' to this Devereux?"

He let himself remove his hand, propped his elbows on his knees and nodded.

"_Oui_. He owns a casino-stroke-hotel in de middle of town. We go as patrons. I cause a hoohah at de gamblin' table. We get taken up to see him."

"Oh, great. So you can't just go in there and call in a favour with him or somethin'?" She rolled her eyes. "Ah _knew_ you were lyin' when you said you knew him."

"_Exaggeratin'_," he corrected her pointedly. "Not lyin'. Dere's a difference. B'sides, I _do_ know him. Just not well enough t' go waltzin' in dere wit'out a reason. Devereux's paranoid. Must be from his bottom-feeder days in NY. His security's fuckin' crazy. Best to go see him wit' a reason, _chere_."

"Okay," she returned slowly. "So when we go up to see him… Then what?"

"I make him a business deal."

"Oh Gawd." She gave him a look. "And would _Ah_ be part of that business deal?"

He looked sheepish at that. "Dat's why I'm givin' you a choice, _chere_."

She glared at him. Long. Hard. And he felt ashamed of himself for having even _thought_ of it.

"Remy," she spoke at last, calmly. "You know, sugah… There's gettin' in close, and there's _gettin' in close…_"

He looked at her with interest.

"Meanin'…?"

"You're assumin' Ah need to be intimate with him in some way to absorb him."

"Two things, _chere_," he explained, counting them off on his fingers. "One – Devereux's gonna have his henchmen wit' him at all times. Which means we have to get you and him alone t' pull de stunt. Second – you're gonna need enough contact time to get enough of his memories t' sift out those coordinates."

He finished, and was surprised when she smiled at him, cold, sly.

"You're wrong, Remy. On both counts."

He was confused.

"You mean t' tell me… You can pull dis off _in a room_ _full of muscle_ and at de same time for long enough to _get what you need_?"

She nodded and he stared at her as if to say _when did you get dis good?_ And she grinned as if she'd read his mind.

"C'mon, Remy. It's been years since you last saw me do a _real_ absorption. Raven _was_ useful for _somethin'_ all those years. She trained me up and then some."

Now it was his turn to look sceptical.

"You sure about dis, Rogue?"

"Absolutely." Her smile was wide now. "Your turn t' trust me now, Cajun. Can you do it?"

He let out a long breath

"So you're up for dis den?"

Well, he had to be sure…

"Sure. We'll play your game. When does it start?"

"T'morrow evenin'."

"Okay." She stood and grabbed the towel from the back of the chair again. "You can count me in."

She began to walk towards the bathroom again when he stopped her.

"One more t'ing, _chere_."

She stopped and turned to him.

"What?"

"You're gonna haveta dress up pretty."

"Of course." Her tone was laced with sarcasm. "In what, exactly?"

He glanced over at the single bag that was now her life. He was pretty sure there wasn't much else in it than her bodysuit and the clothes she was wearing now.

"Here." He stood and dug into his wallet, taking out a wad of cash. "When you're done, go and buy yourself somet'ing nice. Buy yourself a whole wardrobe if you want."

"Hm." She glared at the money as if it was dirty, and he hastened to reassure her.

"Don't worry none, _chere_. Dis money clean. It's mine. From de Guilds. From my family."

Her expression changed, a mixture of confusion and compassion. She reached out and took the money; he was glad she didn't question him further.

He sat at the desk while the sound of the hairdryer echoed in the bathroom, tried to block out the scent of her that still clung to the air around him.

She'd be there the next day. And the next. The space that had been his and his alone for so long would now belong to her too. She would fill all those hours spent alone, trying to forget her, trying to forget himself. All that waiting, all that wanting… It was over. He had her.

Remy wiped his face with the palm of his hands.

_I promised myself… I promised myself I wouldn't do dis…_

Because the emptiness had always been better than a heart that was so full it was like a landslide just waiting to happen…

_And he's nineteen again, and it's another sultry day in New Orleans, the scent of the swamps filtering up through his bedroom, where he lies on his back with all the crumpled, sweat-soaked sheets stuck to his legs… And everything is good, everything is right, everything is just the way it should be…_

_ He looks up into the face of an angel, all pale blue eyes and tumbling, tousled golden hair, and he's been with so many girls, so many women, but none of them have made him feel like this. He's reckless when he's around her, stupid. He's helpless at her feet and he loves it. She's seduced him, turned the tables on him and he doesn't think she even knows what it is she does to him._

_ "Pere is gonna be so mad…" she murmurs, running her fingers over his jaw-line and pouting in that way he loves so much._

_ "Only if he finds out," he answers her huskily, every caress like sweet honey to him. "And he ain't never gonna find out…"_

_ "Non," she replies, her frown deepening. "But I think Julien suspects somethin'… He keeps followin' me round, askin' me where I'm goin'…"_

_ "Pfft." He brushes her worries away with a small flick of his hand, lets his fingers run the curve of her naked back. "Your brother is a dumbass fuck. No offence, but it's true. He won't guess a t'ing."_

_ She laughs. He can't get enough of it. He's selfish. He wants to keep it all to himself. He wants _her_ all to himself._

_ "Julien will understand," she tells him. "One day."_

_ He grunts back doubtfully. He hates Julien almost as much as Julien hates him._

_ The angel in his arms glances at the clock on the nightstand. She sighs._

_ "It's late. I should get back before dey miss me…"_

_ "Non." His arm encircles her waist, holding all her softness and warmth to him, not yet willing to give it up. "Just a li'l while more. I can't stand it when you're gone."_

_ She chuckles, touching her nose to his own and planting a chaste kiss on his lips._

_ "You're such a liar, Remy LeBeau. I'm surprised you even miss me when you have all dose other pretty girls hangin' round you…"_

_ "Not one o' dem is like you," he tells her and the seriousness of his tone makes her blink._

_ "Oh? Really? Why?"_

_ "Because…" And he can't help it, he leans forward and he kisses her and he kisses her and he says, "Because I love you."_

_ And he keeps telling her that, over and over, telling her he loves her until he thinks she believes him, even though he lies to everyone, especially when he tells women he loves them. Not with her. With her, it's real. She needs to know that. She needs to know this isn't a game now. She needs to tell him that she loves him back._

_ But she doesn't, and it's okay because she stays, just that little while longer, and yes – everything is right, and everything is good, and everything is as it should be._

_ He has given her his heart, and she can do whatever she wants with it because he loves her and he always will._

-oOo-


	5. The Con

**: TWIST OF FATE :**

**_PART ONE: _****DRIVE**

**(5) - The Con -**

Rogue blinked, and the girl in the mirror blinked mascara-flecked eyelashes back at her.

It was that ghost of a girl again, the one who wasn't her.

She streaked red across her lips as if another person directed her hand. Her mind was about a million miles away. It was on Logan, and a past long since gone. Truth be told, it had been a shock to hear his voice again. After all those years… to have proof, irrefutable proof that he was still alive, was both a triumph and a solace to her. It was proof that _she was not alone_.

The ghost girl stared at her as she added some gloss to those red, red lips.

He'd been there for her, that night. The night before everything had gone so spectacularly wrong, when Xavier and so many of her friends and comrades – her _family_ – had died.

_"Sittin' here sulkin', stripes? That ain't like you."_

_ He'd sat across from her on the sill of those deep bay windows that looked out onto the Institute's expansive lawns. In the distance the cedar tree rose up protectively over a jewel-like lake that sparkled in the late afternoon sunshine._

_ She looked up at him from the crease of her elbows. She wasn't sulking, not really. She was confused, confused by her feelings and what it all meant. And despite all his gruffness, all his bluff, there was real, brotherly concern in his eyes as he looked at her._

_ "Lemme guess," he said. "It's the Cajun."_

_ She said nothing but held her knees tighter to her._

_ "Wanna talk about it?" he asked._

_ "Ah'm not sure Ah really know what to say…"_

_ And she didn't, because she didn't even know what to _think_…_

_ "If he's pulled anythin' funny on you…"_

_ …_I'll rip him another one, _said his expression._

_ "It's not that he did, Logan," she confessed. "It's that Ah wanted it."_

_ And she would've done it, she would've kissed him if he hadn't tried to persuade her with the memory of Cody and an adolescent need to discover what passion was all about. Because, of course, that had ended in death and begun the long, dark tenure of her curse._

_ Logan let out a breath through his teeth._

_ "Does that Cajun _wanna_ die or somethin'…?"_

_ "Ah think Ah'm fallin' for him," she cut right across the tail-end of his sentence. _

_ He stared at her._

_ "Ah think if he asks me to kiss him again, Ah will."_

_ He still said nothing, and she looked up into his eyes, said, "Yah think he's playin' me, don't you."_

_ And he looked away. Down. At his fingers. Then up again._

_ "I don't know," was all he would admit. _

_ "But Ah thought you said—"_

_ "What that boy believes and what he's capable of are two different things. You understand, darlin'?"_

_ She bit her lip. She nodded._

_ "You're a grown woman, Rogue," he told her. "What do _you_ want?"_

_ And she didn't have an answer…_

_ But he was smiling as he stood, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder and saying, "If you figure it's him that you want, you need to go get him. And not be shy about it."_

_ It was her turn to stare at him._

_ "Rogue," he continued, "you're like a kid sister to me. Last thing I want is to see you lookin' miserable like this. I don't like the Cajun, but if you think he's the one to make you happy, who'm I to tell you you're wrong?" _

_ He moved to go and she reached out and caught his wrist, stopping him._

_ "Logan… Thanks…"_

_ He smiled down at her._

_ "Don't mention it, stripes. Anythin' I can do for you, I will. Remember that."_

And she did. Remember it. But he probably thought she was dead now. Just like Remy had thought she was.

"Rogue!" she heard him call from the other side of the bathroom door.

She'd dwelt too long on her memories. The ghost girl blotted her lipstick carefully, packed away the rest of her makeup and left the room.

He was standing by the bed adjusting the cuffs of a black pinstripe suit when he saw her.

"Gorgeous," he breathed appreciatively at the sight of her.

"You don't clean up too badly yourself, sugah," she returned with just the shadow of a smile. Truth was, she couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him dressed like this – if ever. The suit, the tie, those unruly auburn locks of his tamed and swept slightly back from his face… He carried it well. The suaveness, the debonair sexiness. She was sure he'd done this a million times before, and broken a few hearts along the way.

Rogue walked up to him and stood close enough to rearrange the hint of a handkerchief poking out of his breast pocket. She was fairly certain he would've preferred her to stand closer.

"There," she said softly, brushing down the front of his suit gently. "Perfect. Except for this." She reached up and ran a palm along his jaw, the line of stubble there. He didn't protest.

"Thought you'd like me better with it," he answered, his voice husky. He leaned in towards her and she didn't lean back.

"Ah tend t' like yah however you present yahself, sugah," she murmured back, letting her palm stroke his jaw just a trace before dropping her hand again. She smiled up at him. "Shall we go?"

He nodded, briefly, and she turned to pick up the soft satin bolero that matched the emerald green wiggle dress she wore. Remy's gaze slid warm and hungry over the length of her body – she could feel it. It was difficult to ignore when the same hunger was driving through her own veins. Honestly, when she'd chosen this evening's outfit she'd been going for classy rather than wanton sex appeal. The last thing she wanted was an excuse for Devereux to paw at her. But then, she didn't often wear dresses and this one was probably enough to get Remy going after all the slacks and sweaters she usually went for.

"Ah still think this is crazy," she warned him as he helped her, unannounced, slip into the jacket.

"I know. Guess a part of me t'inks it is too…"

She walked to the door thinking _Ah hate heels_.

"Wait, Rogue," he stopped her. "I jus' thought of somethin'."

She turned and cocked an eyebrow at him; he took out his wallet and produced a SIM card, held it out to her.

"Figured your phone would need it now…"

She smiled faintly at him.

"Don't need one, sugah. Ah already got one."

He stared at her, confused.

"While you were in Rita's store. They were sellin' phones and stuff next door. Ah got one then." She turned to the door again. "Maybe we should swap phone numbers. In the cab. You can be my first contact."

And threw open the door and walked out, thinking _Ah really hate heels._

-oOo-

Ostentatious didn't quite cut it.

In fact, it had to be just about the tackiest place Rogue had ever set a foot in.

Devereux had clearly spared no expense in building his little empire. Gilt, marble and a liberal smattering of gaudy fountains and other water features made up the first floor casino. It wasn't hard to guess that the upper floor hotel was probably just as plush and vulgar. Rich people milled around in their finest, laughing, chattering, throwing away hundreds of dollars at a time. Alcohol flowed freely. Gold and diamonds glittered in the lights of the chandeliers. If there was a boom town in North America, it was Boonton.

Rogue stood in a corner sipping an amaretto sour, watching it all from the sidelines.

Casinos were far from being her scene, even if she'd ever had the cash to blow on them. As far as she was concerned, this was just another job, and she couldn't help it – she was already scouting out for potential trouble, clocking every single individual in the room, plus any extra security that had been thrown into the mix.

Remy, on the other hand, was in his element.

He was at the roulette table, standing in the middle of a gaggle of fluttering ladies, on yet another implausible winning streak.

It was fair to say he was causing quite a stir. Most of the cheers of applause had turned to all out hostility long ago, at least from the male audience. Those of the female persuasion would've been taken with this handsome stranger whether he were all out cheating or not. Which, of course, he was.

Something between a smile and a frown flickered across Rogue's face as a busty brunette leaned close and whispered something in his ear. He looked back at her, smiled, said something she guessed was smooth and fast. It was obvious that he was right at home here, that he'd spent time in this kind of place many times before. To him it was just as much a job as it was to her. But he took his time, sampled the delights, took as much as he could before it was time to run. She admired his irreverence. To him, the con was just part of the fun. To her, some things were still sacred, and that meant leaving most innocent bystander's faith in humanity intact.

Five minutes later he was sidling up to her with a huge wodge of chips.

"Nice trick," she praised him dryly as he approached her with a big grin on his face. "Weightin' the dice by chargin' one face. And here Ah was actually thinkin' you had some skill at this."

"At least half of dat was skill," he protested comically with both hands up in defence; but she wasn't quite done teasing him yet.

"And you _do_ know about half the guys round that table were security, right?" she added testily.

"_Bon_." He reached out, toyed with a lock of her hair as soon as he was close enough. She wasn't even sure he was aware that he did it. Over her shoulder she could already see more than just a couple of girls looking disappointed. "You shoulda joined me, _chere_," he said, looking at the white lock of hair in his fingers. "Was fun."

"Ah think your idea of fun is kinda different to mine, sugah," she rejoined. At her words he seemed to realise he was touching her. He dropped his hand and smiled lazily.

"I wouldn't say dat…" he replied meaningfully. There it was again. His eyes on her body and enough tension to cut with a knife. She set her half-empty glass on a nearby ledge. The truth was, she was trying not to get distracted by all… _this_. The drink and the gambling and the pretty girls wanting him, not to mention _him_ looking delicious enough to unwrap and devour all in one go. Quite frankly she wouldn't have minded if he decided to wear Armani suits every day for the rest of his life. There were definitely worse things to look forward to.

"Looks like you broke a few hearts back there too," she noted sarcastically as they began to walk towards the cashier desk.

"What? Oh, yeah." His tone was all feigned insouciance. "Yeah, looks like I missed out on a really wild foursome tonight. Fivesome if you're included, _beb_."

"Don't even think it, sugah," she shot at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Too late. I already did."

She could've given him a playful punch, but ended up laughing instead.

They turned heads as they walked. She was used to doing that; it was different though, walking alongside Remy, knowing that he was turning as many heads as she was, that they both were, together. She didn't know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, to be drawing so much attention to themselves.

"You think this was a good idea?" Rogue whispered to him as they stood at the counter. "Ah mean, makin' ourselves look so conspicuous and all?"

He shrugged.

"Why? You don't like, _chere_?"

"Ah _like_ a lot," she replied, smoothing out the unruly handkerchief in his breastpocket once again. "Ah guess Ah'm just paranoid. Things don't always turn out well when Ah pull this kinda high-end Mission Impossible type stunt. Especially when half the world is _starin_'."

"But dat's half de fun, _chere_," he smiled, as the cashier slid his winnings over.

"For you, maybe," she pouted. "This kinda thing makes me nervous."

"Why? Don't you like it when a man appreciates de fact dat you're beautiful?"

She liked it when _he_ did.

"Ah used to," she replied, looking away and tucking a loose lock of white hair behind her ear. "When touchin' wasn't a problem."

"You mean when touchin' _was_ a problem," he corrected her, watching her hand behind her ear. The lock slipped free again and she gave up. The truth was, this place will bringing back a whole mess of unpleasant memories and he was the only thing stopping her from totally losing her shit.

"Depends on how you look at it," she murmured.

"I know which way I do," he commented frankly, finally turning to pick up the money still lying in front of them.

Just shy of thirty thousand. That was the total of his winnings. Rogue raised an eyebrow at him as they walked back into the casino.

"You don't need to steal, sugah. You can just cheat your way to millions."

"Too easy," he told her, flicking through the bills as though he relished just the feel of them. "Don't mean I didn't try it once. Back when I was a kid. Was fun, for a while. But it got old real quick."

"Admit it. You're enjoyin' this, sugah. The money, the booze, the women…"

He grinned.

"De best jobs are de ones where you get to dress up nice, eat, drink, and be de life and soul of de party. You get a taste for de highlife. We should do dis more often, _chere_. We could have a lotta fun." He paused as three burly security guards in black suits began to head towards them from three directions. "Here we go," he murmured. "'Bout damn time too."

They both stopped, letting the men ring them. The taller one squared up to Remy, said in a low baritone; "You. The boss wants to see you."

"You sure took your time, _mon ami_," Remy answered without a hint of self-consciousness. "I been waitin' all evenin' for your boss to come down and see me. Figured I'd waste some time on de roulette table while I was waitin'. So. He made up his mind to see me now or what?"

The men looked at each other. At last the tall one looked back at him.

"You have an appointment with Mr. Devereux?" he asked suspiciously.

Remy feigned surprise.

"What? He didn't get de call?"

"No, sir, he did not."

"You sure?"

"We would've been told. There was no call about seeing a Mr…"

"LeBeau," Remy replied without missing a beat. "Remy LeBeau. And there must've been a call. My boss arranged a meetin' to discuss an important business proposition. It was meant to have started…" and he glanced calmly at his watch, "forty-five minutes ago."

Again the men looked at one another. Rogue looked as nonchalant as she could.

"There was no call," the man repeated, although he looked a little uncertain now. Remy did his best impression of agitated businessman. He sighed, he rolled his eyes, he put his hand on his hip and scratched his eyebrow.

"Look," he said at last. "I got an idea. Why don't you go upstairs and tell your boss Remy LeBeau is waitin' here to make a business arrangement wit' him on behalf of Logan. He'll know who I'm talkin' about. Jus' please, make it quick. I've been waitin' long enough as it is."

The men shared their mute form of communication again, and the tall one nodded.

"All right. But Olsen here's gonna stay with you, make sure you don't try to pull anything funny while we're gone."

Remy waved his hand as if to say _whatever_, and two of the guards went off. It was several minutes before they returned, still as stony-faced as ever.

"The boss will see you now," the tall one said, and Remy let out an exaggerated exhalation of relief.

"About fuckin' time," he muttered, and they followed the guards out a strategically placed hidden door that led up a smaller staircase that was still nevertheless made of the finest white marble.

Devereux was at the top of the stairs, pacing about and looking generally agitated. When he saw Remy appear he stopped and stared.

"_Monsieur_ LeBeau!" he exclaimed, as they came to a stop on the landing before him. "So you're working for Logan now? Well, what a surprise! Figures though, you all being muties and all. Yup, sure does!" He waved aside his flunkies as if swatting flies, and they all soundlessly turned and walked back down the stairs. Rogue watched all this by-play curiously. Devereux was a somewhat small, greasy-looking man in a flashy purple suit with a slightly high-pitched voice. He wasn't at all what one would've put down as a criminal kingpin, but then these were strange times, and anyone could carve out an empire if they figured out how to take advantage of the millions of disenfranchised mutants.

"Yup," Remy replied casually. "I'm workin' for Logan. Was surprised you didn't get his call… But he's kinda busy these days, tearin' up Chicago and all. Maybe he forgot."

He shrugged. Devereux nodded solemnly. "Not to worry, it's all good, it's all good. I've dealt with Logan in the past, I am, uh, _acquainted_ with how he operates." A tight smile worked across his lips. Rogue got the distinct impression that he didn't exactly have good memories about how Logan happened to operate. "I understand he wants to arrange some _business_…" And he rubbed his hands together avariciously.

"_Oui_," Remy nodded. "He's talkin' a big shipment dis time. And he wants it fast."

"Of course, of course," Devereux spoke hurriedly. "But this is no place to discuss this. Let's go into my room and we'll get all nice and comfortable, shall we?" His eyes fell on Rogue with an open leer; she suppressed a memory of Troy Rifkind with an inward shudder.

"And who might _this_ be?" he asked, running his eyes over her in that lascivious way she had seen in so many men before.

"Dis Anya," Remy introduced her casually. "She's my secretary – if'n you know what I mean." He placed a hand on her shoulder as if to simultaneously say, _so back off_, and Devereux deferred.

"She a mutie too?" he queried, still eyeing her with open interest.

"Yes," she replied for herself this time, syncing with a random psyche in her head just as she opened her mouth. She thought it odd that he kept using a derogatory term such as 'mutie', but figured he got away with it because of who he was and what he did for the 'mutant community'. "Ah have a photographic memory – perfect recall," she continued, letting her new persona speak for her. "Ah'm here to take the minutes of this meetin'. Just a guarantee for Logan, you see, in case you don't deliver exactly what's on the menu. He may look kinda rough round the edges, but he likes everythin' just so. He gets kinda twitchy if even the smallest detail is outta whack."

The look on Devereux's face told her that he'd been on the receiving end of Logan's 'twitchiness' before. He went slightly pale and couldn't quite hide it from either of them.

"Nice place, by the way," she added brightly, smiling at him with sickening sweetness. "As Remy says, before business must always come pleasure."

"And after," Remy added softly with a small smile, his hand still lightly squeezing her shoulder.

"And Ah do so like to have some fun too," she finished unnecessarily, trying to straddle that borderline between intelligent but loose and downright airheaded. The more inoffensive she came off the better. She knew how it worked. Good cop, bad cop. Smart cop, dumb cop. She needed to be the counterpoint to Remy's overt con, working away in the background, unseen. Kind of difficult when all men did was like the look of her.

"Dat's my girl," Remy murmured appreciatively, giving her shoulder another squeeze. His smile joined hers. Devereux simpered and turned away.

"Glad you enjoyed the entertainment," he spoke, as if his mind were somewhere else – possibly on Logan being 'twitchy'. "Now. Shall we discuss business?"

Devereux's office was in stark contrast to the public spaces on the ground floor. There was no gaudiness, just simple (though high-end) functionality. A desk, a plasma TV screen, three plush leather sofas, on which three more bodyguards were already lounging, looking up with only mild interest as the new guests entered. An entire wall was given over to in-built security monitors showing live, high resolution colour video of the casino downstairs. It was obvious to Rogue that Devereux had already been tracking their movements beforehand. Practically every single corner of the downstairs space was covered by the cameras. She wondered whether Devereux actually recognised Remy, and if so, just when he'd actually done so. She didn't have long to find out.

"Gotta admit," Devereux finally spoke, walking up behind his desk and taking a seat at the black leather swivel chair, "I _thought_ I'd seen you around somewhere. How long has it been, LeBeau? What…?"

"Nearly ten years," Remy supplied, taking in the room about him with a mere flicker of the eyes. Devereux nodded.

"That's right. The Oyama job."

"Dat's it."

No more elaboration was needed. Devereux indicated to the nearest empty sofa and they both took a seat. The bodyguards simultaneously got up and spread themselves out round the room, ringing them with subtle efficiency; all done without a signal from Devereux himself. It was clear that this was a standard procedure undertaken whenever the boss had 'guests'.

"So," Devereux spoke when the two of them had settled. "You mentioned Logan wanting another job done. I take it it's more of the same."

"Naturally," Remy replied with easy flippancy. "It's a big job, and he don't entirely trust you, but seein' as you're de only one who provides de necessary service, dere ain't no one else he can go to."

Devereux bristled a bit at that. Rogue could already see a man who prided himself on being an astute businessman who was used to having that confirmed by everyone he came into contact with. But she sensed also fear of Logan. And that fear was greater than his pride.

"Yeah well," he began, biting back on whatever resentment Rogue knew was bubbling away in there, "Logan's a hard man to please. He has standards. I can't fault that."

"Amen t' dat," Remy agreed. "Haveta say, I ain't got no complaints wit' him as a boss. He treats all'a us like his own."

Rogue stood, tiring of the nuanced power play going on between them, something best left to Remy's silver tongue. She had to maintain that sense of professional detachment, as every so-called secretary would – aloof and untouchable. And besides, she had to steel herself for the task that awaited her. There was no point in getting mired in the politick of the moment.

She walked to a low side cabinet and stared up at the abstract painting on the wall, ignoring the bodyguards watching her every movement. She felt pretty certain that Devereux had not chosen the décor for this room – the low-key sophistication didn't seem his taste at all.

"So what's this job Logan wants done then?" he was saying behind her. "He wants another mutie shipped, huh?"

"Not just one," Remy replied. "Five."

"Five?!" Devereux was incredulous. "There's no fuckin' way I or anyone else could—"

"Dere's fifty thou in it for you if you can pull it off."

Silence. Rogue turned and looked at Devereux with interest. He sat behind the desk, his mouth working, but no sound coming out. "Fifty _thou_?!" he finally managed to get out.

"_Oui_. Ten thou each." Remy's voice was even, matter-of-fact. "Dese some very important people he's wantin', _mon ami_. Powerful mutants. He's willin' to pay top dollar for them."

Devereux's expression could only be described as aghast.

"What? He thinkin' of startin' up a mutant army or somethin'?"

Remy smiled humourlessly, spread out his palms and shrugged. Devereux took in a deep breath and let it out again noisily.

"Shit, man. Fifty thou. Your boss is fuckin' crazy, you know that?"

Remy and Rogue shared a short glance but said nothing. Devereux cleared his throat quickly.

"Not that I give a damn or anything, man. Especially not if I'm gettin' paid the big bucks to lend him a hand." He paused, glanced at Remy with suddenly narrowed eyes. "You _did_ say fifty thou, right?"

"Like I said, dese mutants important. Dey worth every cent, dime and dollar." Remy frowned. "You sure you gonna be able to pull dis off, Devereux? Dis ain't gonna be no walk in de park. Apparently dese mutants are all in high security interment camps. You sure you have enough strings to pull?"

"Seriously?" Devereux looked offended. "I'm an expert at this. I'm the _only_ expert there is. Logan can trust me one hundred percent. As long as he has the cash to back this up…"

"Don't worry," Remy returned with a brusque wave of the hand. "You'll get your money. Assumin' you can actually deliver."

"Hey, I haven't disappointed yet."

"So you're on board?" Remy asked. Devereux gaped at him.

"Are you fuckin' kiddin'? You think I can turn down an offer like this? I don't think so." He pushed himself up from his chair. "Well… I guess this deserves a drink to seal the deal. Grim." He turned to one of the burly men who'd been standing impassively nearby. "Bring in a bottle of Bollinger. _Now!_" he demanded shrilly, when Grim looked nonplussed. The man lumbered out the room with a slighted look on his face.

"So," Devereux continued when he had gone. "How is good ol' Logan these days?" He moved to the wall of monitors and stared at it briefly. "Still tearing up Chicago? Last I heard, he brought down a Sentinel all by himself. With his bare hands." He turned, a laughed, a high-pitched, nervous laugh. "I mean, come on. It's gotta be a joke, right? It ain't possible."

Remy shrugged nonchalantly.

"Nope. I was dere. It's true."

The smile on Devereux's face blinked out. He cleared his throat, just as his flunky came back in with the champagne and the flutes, helpfully assisted by one of the hotel staff, a pretty blonde thing who looked out of her depth.

"Ah!" the shifty man rubbed his hands and looked grateful for a distraction. Grim placed the bottle on the conference desk as if he were tossing aside something useless, while the girl laid the tray of flutes beside it with the air of a child trying to be extra careful not to break a family heirloom. As she turned to go, Devereux copped himself a grope. She pulled a simpering expression of thinly disguised disgust as he did so, the kind that told Rogue it'd happened so often she knew to keep quiet. She gritted her teeth quietly as the girl tottered out and shut the door softly behind her, with just a suggestion that she would've preferred to slam it hard and run.

"Well now," Devereux continued, glancing back at them with renewed vigour, "this is nice, isn't it? Your Logan will have what he wants, and I'm fifty thou richer! I think we can all drink to that!"

He popped the cork and poured out three glasses. Rogue watched as he walked to the sofa, handed Remy one of the flutes. Then he turned to her, that same expression on his face, of mingled desire and restraint as he approached her, arm outstretched… And she steeled herself as the glass came closer to her, waited for it, _three, two, one…_

He held out the glass to her, and she reached out to receive it with studied impassivity… She let his finger touch hers, just the briefest brush of contact, and in that split second she did it, _she pulled._

He swayed momentarily, mid-gesture; his eyes glazed over, his skin went pale. It was only in the space of a heartbeat – the next second he had dropped his hand as she took the glass from him, looking a little dazed and confused.

"You okay?" she asked him without so much as a blink of the eyes, her tone a perfect balance between indifference and polite concern. He glanced up at her, nodded weakly, as if he'd just realised she was right there in front of him.

"Um… Yup." He shook himself, brow furrowed. Over his shoulder, Rogue saw Remy looking over at them with mild interest. She tried not to look directly at him lest there was communication in that glance.

Devereux turned away, back to the desk, seeming to re-gather his wits as he did so. Rogue took the opportunity to move back to the sofa, sitting down next to Remy whilst she tried to steady her own senses. She needed an opening, and it was taking an inhuman effort just to keep Devereux _down._

_ Shut up, Ah'm tryin' t' concentrate._

And he flickered there, flailed a little, in that tiny, dark corner of her mind.

Remy slung an arm over the back of the sofa, his hand moving to caress the bare curve of her upper arm in a small, rhythmic cadence. Trying to ground her, trying to give her something to focus on. She fell into it willingly, grateful for the anchor.

Devereux was at his desk. He picked up his own glass and turned, recovered from whatever had ailed him for those few short moments. He said something she did not hear, raised the champagne in his hand. She was aware of herself doing the same as though from a place very far away.

They drank. All her senses were tunnelling, and she didn't feel it, didn't taste it. Her mind was holding down that slippery little eel in the corner there, counting the sweet, soft strokes of Remy's thumb on her flesh.

Devereux's mouth continued to move and she watched it, watched it until it stopped, and she jumped right in, said mechanically, "Excuse me."

Remy's hand paused, and she stood.

"Ah need t' go powder mah nose."

Devereux smiled that slimy smile, and indicated obligingly to a door near the corner of the room. She walked to it, turned, said in that curiously disembodied voice, "Now don't you boys go talkin' about anythin' important while Ah'm gone."

She pushed on the door handle; and then she was in.

And the flood descended.

_The girl in the back of the truck looks up at him from mistrustful brown eyes the shape of almonds, gaze unwavering even as they hit a bump in the road. Asian girls aren't his thing, but he thinks, yeah, he could do her. If Logan wouldn't lop his head off at the mere suggestion of him having done so._

_ Ah, fuck it._

_ It ain't worth it. Not in a million years. He doesn't like the way she stares at him anyway. He isn't the kind of guy who likes a girl who has fear in her eyes when she looks at him. He likes the disgust in this girl's gaze even less._

_ "Don't worry, sweetheart," he tells her as they hit another bump in the road. "We'll be there any minute now."_

_ She continues to glare at him with open hostility. He looks back at the road and sneers._

_ Stupid bitch._

_ The truck screeches to a halt. He re-checks the sat nav, just in case, hoping against hope that the damn thing is working._

_ "You _did_ check this before we left, right?" he asks the driver again for the umpteenth time. The man gives him a look, one that says, _we're here, aren't we?, _before opening the door and getting out._

_ He's left in the passenger seat, re-checking the coordinates against the map on the screen in front of him. Fuck it. If it's wrong, it's too late to do a damn thing about it now._

_ He gets out, slams the door shut, opens up the back of the truck. He sees the girl's eyes before anything else._

_ "We're here. Out."_

_ The girl climbs out and he grips her shoulder hard as she waits there on the street next to him. Just in case she gets the inclination to run. He stands there in the rain and the dark while the driver lights a cigarette in the shadows a few feet away. Nothing. No one. He looks up at the street signs again. Yup, this is the right place. And still no one. He fights between fury and fear. Being pushed around like this… by a ghost… by a ghost that could rip his head off with a swing of his fist. A ghost who'd once killed ten of his best men in two short minutes._

_ A train rumbles overhead._

_ He smells him first._

_ Cigar smoke on the breeze; and then he sees him, striding forward from the shadows, a short little man who moves like he's seen enough, done enough, killed enough. And he has. No doubt about it. The lines on his face mark every single kill; the feral scowl the last thing more than a few men had seen. Short he may be, but small he isn't. His muscles are strong enough to move boulders._

_ The man stops about a yard away, and glares right into his eyes. He can't help flinching. He remembers wading through the blood of his security guards to cower in a corner while that man had advanced on him, the claws protruding from his fists dark and red and sticky, that selfsame glint in his eyes as he'd come closer, closer…_

_ Momentary panic flares in him, but beside him the girl stirs, gasps, says, "Logan!"_

_ And she runs to him, runs to the killer and throws her arms round him, and Logan's eyes are off of him now, the awful gaze diverted. He puts his arms round her with a tenderness he hadn't thought possible and the girl sobs and shudders like she hasn't cried in years._

_ He stands there and waits, waits until the man and the girl are done with their little reunion, shuffling his feet, wanting to be _away_, and Logan looks up at him, all tenderness gone and says, "Y' did good, Devereux."_

_ He tries a smile and it comes out as a frightened grimace. The wolfman laughs._

_ "Don't worry, you'll get your precious cash. Five thou, was it? Here, take it."_

_ And he throws a wad of bills into the space between them._

_ He stoops in the dirt and picks up the muddied bills, cheeks flaming, rage pushing at him, fear holding it back. This is the only thing he came for after all. Easy money, to deliver a girl to a crazy old man, right?_

_ He pockets the cash, turns. Logan stops him before he gets to the door._

_ "Remember, Devereux. If I find out you've harmed her…"_

_ The sentence remains unfinished. He gets in the truck, and when they finally pull out, the wolfman is still there holding the girl to him, with that same awful gaze staring right after them, and somehow he knows he'll never get away._

She came to on a sharp exhalation of breath, leaning over the marble sink with the bathroom tunnelling in and out of focus behind her.

Rogue lifted her face and the ghost girl stared back at her in the mirror, pale-faced, short sharp gasps coming from her lips. She hooked onto that face. Studied every inch of it, measured each movement until she was there again, her breathing had evened out and a little colour had come back to her cheeks. Only then did she dare to look down again, at the scrap of paper lying on the counter between both hands pressed onto the cool, rose marble. At the ungainly scrawl in her handwriting that said:

_Corner of W Lake St & N Wells St. Opposite UPS store._

She snatched up the paper, folded it quickly, and slipped it inside her purse, hurrying out without a backward glance.

They were talking as she entered; she blocked the sound to a low murmur and walked back to the sofa as unobtrusively as she could. Remy's arm was still slung over the back of the sofa; as she sat he placed a hand on her shoulder with a gentle pressure, just once, just to make sure she was okay. She gave an imperceptible nod and he removed his hand and leaned forward, addressing Devereux in a peremptory tone:

"Well, it's been great doin' bus'ness wit' you, Devereux, but I t'ink it's time my lady friend and I left." He stood, not even giving the other man the chance to protest. "We'll be in contact soon."

"Wait," Devereux was leaning forward, his voice a touch panicked. "You mean there's no timetable for this? You mean I have to wait for your say-so before we get the show on the road?"

"_Oui_," Remy replied with a note of finality. "Like I said – Logan don't trust you. The less you know de better."

Devereux's expression was sulky. "Seriously. After all I've done for that fu-… that guy, you'd think he'd trust me by now…"

"The girl didn't give you a good report," Rogue piped up from her seat. "She told him you looked at her funny." Devereux's face went pale and she passed him a bright smile. "Don't worry none, sugah. You're the only one who can smuggle mutants out of the City, so you're still useful to him. For now."

She stood, and while the slimy man was left flabbergasted, Remy passed her a curious look. She curled a corner of her mouth at him in answer.

They left the room with Devereux spluttering behind them.

-oOo-

Their journey out of the building seemed to pass in a blur to Rogue; a haze of scintillating lights, vivid colours and babbling laughter. All she felt was the light touch of Remy's hand on the small of her back, guiding her as she walked on air, the path ahead funnelling before her in a seemingly endless spiral onward.

It was only until they got onto the sidewalk – and she barely knew how it happened – that she allowed the memories to come flooding back over her, to own her once more. She reached out and leant against the wall, steadying herself against the onslaught as it washed over her.

"Jubilee… My _Gawd_, Remy, it was _Jubilee_…"

"Breathe, _chere_." Remy's voice, his hand once more on her shoulder; she closed her eyes, took deep breaths, stemmed the tide with the bare strength of her will. When she stood straight again he was watching her with steel in his eyes. "You say it was Jubilee Devereux was shippin' to Logan?"

She nodded.

"Ah can't believe it, Remy… She's alive…"

His mouth twisted.

"Seems de government didn't do a thorough enough job gettin' rid of us."

He swivelled slightly and hailed a passing taxi cab with a gesture, before turning back to her.

"You okay?"

His hand was still on her shoulder, soothing, supporting and grounding her just as he had done up in Devereux's room. She smiled gratefully up at him.

"Ah'm fine. Just a little shocked, Ah guess." She hadn't expected it to be _Jubilee_… She met his gaze, which was warm and honeyed and tempered with concern for her. It hit her just how much he had been looking out for her up there in Devereux's office. Instinct had told him how best to help her out. And it had worked.

"Thanks," she added softly. His shrug was slight.

"Figured you could use somethin' t' focus on. Looked like I was gonna lose you for a while back there…"

"Ah was fine. It's just been a while since Ah used mah powers… Got a li'l rusty…"

His small smile curled his lip.

"Rusty, mebbe. You still damn good, _chere_. If I wasn't lookin' for it, I wouldn't even have known when you made contact. Guess Mystique taught you _somet'ing_ worthwhile after all…"

A cab had drawn up on the curb beside them, and his hand dropped reluctantly from her shoulder. It was only as they had stepped into the car and sat down that she reached out and slipped the folded square of notepaper into his hand. In the back seat of the cab, side by side, with the lights of Boonton sliding along their faces, their skin, their hands, they stared ahead, not daring to say a word or give away a thing. Their fingers touched, lingered a split second too long.

She moved her hand away with the softest, slowest of brushstrokes.

In the ensuing silence he unfolded the square of paper quietly, read the few short words with eyes that could see in the darkness. Then he nodded slightly to himself, folded the note back up, and slipped it into his breast pocket.

-oOo-

By the time they got back to the motel, Rogue had finally managed to pin down Devereux and get his psyche to cooperate. After the headrush of the last few hours, the room seemed cold and silent, dim even when she flicked on the lights as they walked in.

"You okay?" he asked again as they stepped inside.

"Yeah." She dropped her clutch on a nearby chair, pulled off her earrings. "Devereux's finally decided to play nice and keep quiet."

Remy grunted his acknowledgement; she heard him shut the door behind him, flip the lock. "You did good, _chere_," he said after a lingering moment of silence. She shrugged.

"Like Ah said. Things have changed the past few years."

"Some things," he replied with a certain something in his voice. "Not others."

Whatever that certain something was, she heard it. A catch, a thread, a note. Of desire. She turned to him. He was still standing by the doorway, hands in his pockets, looking at her. Like he wanted to go close, like he didn't dare.

"No," she decided softly. "Things _have_ changed."

She shed the bolero and threw it onto the bed, not taking her eyes from his, waiting for him to say what he wanted. His eyes took her in, head to toe, in one long, intense sweep. He didn't speak.

"Are you regrettin' this?" she asked him quietly, taking the moment into her own hands when he said nothing. "Leavin' New York? Bringin' me with you?"

Not a blink of the eye, not a twitch of the lips.

"Should I be?"

"Ah dunno," she answered softly. "It's just… things have been different since we left New York and Ah thought maybe…"

She trailed off. He removed his hands from his pockets slowly.

"That I was havin' second thoughts?"

She nodded.

"Yeah."

He looked at the ground, briefly, then back up at her.

"Not a lot I'm gonna miss back in de city, _chere_…"

"Not even Rita?" she couldn't help asking. His sudden silence was penetrating.

"Not even Rita," he agreed at last.

They stood and stared at one another over that short distance, words having run dry. Uncertainty, hesitation in both their gazes. Need, desire. She could feel it in him. Feel the way he was holding it back, holding it down by the tail-end whilst the rest of him was racing towards her at break-neck speed and didn't want to stop.

It was driving her crazy.

It was driving them _both_ crazy.

She walked up to him, finally covered the distance between them till she stood right in front of him, right inside the perimeter of his warmth, feeling it pulsing through him, drawing her out, reeling her in. In her heels she almost matched his height. Neither could escape the gaze of the other, even if they'd wanted to.

"It's okay," she told him lightly, reaching out and placing her hands on his shoulders. "Ah'm scared too." She slid her thumbs in under his jacket, nudged the material off his shoulders; the jacket fell to the floor, unheeded, at his feet.

"I ain't _scared_, _chere_," and his voice was low, husky, "I just…"

No explanation came. She touched his tie, fingered the silken strip of fabric, loosened the knot at his throat.

"Ah know," she whispered. She pulled the tie free of his shirt collar and let it drop to the floor between them. His eyes burned into hers as she slid both hands up his chest, undid the top button of his shirt with a torturous slowness, then the second, then the third…

"De last time I ever did dis…" he began, faltering, as she worked loose the fourth and the fifth…

"You got hurt?"

"I got hurt."

He paused, and so did she; something in his eyes darkened.

"How did you know?" he asked.

"Ah don't know," she lied.

The last button was freed; she slid her hands in under the parted fabric, up his bare torso, swept the shirt over his shoulders and off his arms, distraction enough, she hoped, from her untruth, from the fact that she had seen _Belle_ in his mind before, and all the suffering she had given him. She ran her fingers over his body, re-familiarising herself with the shape and the feel of him; and the darkness left his eyes, desire rekindled…

"Was a long time ago, _chere_," he told her. "Just memories. Long gone. Especially here. Now." His hands finally moved, smoothing over her waist to the small of her back, nestling there all warm and needy and _exhilarating…_ She felt his fingers climb her back, hovering over the zip of her dress, waiting…

"Ah've never done this before," she told him honestly; but the point was academic, he'd always known that. He half-smiled, a smile full of understanding and want and something more…

"If it all goes wrong, it could kill you, y'know dat?" he murmured.

"Ah know," she murmured back. "But Ah want it too badly to back away now."

The smile still there; one hand pulled down the zip in a single slow movement, the other pressed her hips against his; delicious connection, frightening, exhilarating, like falling in a dream and waking before you hit the ground, always waking…

"I don't wanna hurt you," he whispered, breath on her lips, making the sense of vertigo even more thrilling… He hooked the straps of her dress, and she let him draw them down over the length of her arms, taking the dress with them, over her body, her hips, her thighs, letting it drop away to nothing more than a silken puddle at her feet…

"Yah don't wanna _be_ hurt," she corrected him softly, her fingers thumbing open the button of his pants.

"Dat too," he agreed, unable to hold back a moment longer, his mouth finally closing over hers for the first time since they'd left New York, since they'd left Mystique's house and the enclosure she'd locked herself in these six, long, gruelling years.

And then they were there, on the bed, clothes off, naked, straining, seeking, shuddering, sinking; and suddenly there was no turning back, because now there was everything to gain, and consequently, everything to lose.

-oOo-

_She dreams about it. She dreams about _this_._

_ It isn't just about flesh anymore. It isn't just about pleasure and release._

_ It's about what this is doing to her heart. It's this paradoxical thing, this unbearable lightness of being._

_ She thought she knew what love was. For the longest time she thought love was sex, and sex was love. But it isn't. She knows that now. It isn't about winning. It's about surrendering. It isn't about the pleasure you can derive from another person's body. It's about being content just to lie beside them, to share in their sleep. She knows that now. It's why she tries to stay there till morning, why she doesn't run as soon as the deed is done. She thinks she could stay there forever watching the one she loves sleep, so silent, so beautiful. It isn't always possible. But she stays for as long as she can._

_ She leaves the bedroom through the window. It's a well-practiced routine by now. She knows the Boudreaux mansion almost as well as the LeBeau mansion now. She heads for the retaining wall via the summerhouse. It's the weakest link in their defences, too many hidden angles for a thief to use as cover._

_ She's just about made it over the wall when she hears a noise. She doesn't have time to react. Hands grab the leg of her pants and with a single jerk she's tumbling off her perch, landing on her back in a bed of weeds with all the wind knocked out of her._

_ And she knows who her attacker is, even before she sees his face._

_ "At last I catch you red-handed, LeBeau," Julien Boudreaux seethes above him. "How dare you defile my sister and bring shame upon de clan of Boudreaux! Bartards foutous! But we'll have our revenge! You will submit to my father as de law of de Guilds require, and restore my sister's honour!"_

_ "But I love Belle!" she pleads, and Julien only sneers with disdain._

_ "Liar! I know de kind of man you are, Remy LeBeau! Your only interest is to add my sister to your sick collection of conquests and mock de name of Boudreaux! But now mon pere will hear about dis and make sure you never see her again!"_

_ She is desperate. Imagining a life without Belladonna Boudreaux in it is like death. Julien is already heading back to the house to rouse his father, and she is on her knees, she grasps her enemy by the legs in supplication, she humbles herself in a way she never has before._

_ "Non!" she begs frantically. "Non, I'll do anyt'ing! I'll… I'll marry Belle if dat's what it takes!"_

_ And Julien looks down on her. It's a look of pure disgust, pure hatred._

_ "My sister? Become a LeBeau? I'll kill de both of you before I let dat happen!"_

_ He kicks her down, spits on her. She watches him walking away back to the mansion with the sure sense that every good thing in her life is walking away with him. She's good at taking risks. She's good at beating the odds. Hers is a charmed life – she never steps a foot wrong. Always gets what she wants. Always gets away with shit._

_ But this isn't about wanting and having everything you can get, not anymore. This is about something far more fundamental. About needing something as basic as water to drink and air to breathe. It's her life. It's her heart. This is something worth fighting for, and fighting for to the death._

_ And she realises something else now. She realises what a person is willing to do to defend love._

_ And she decides to prove her love for Belle. She decides to risk this one decision that she somehow knows will ruin her entire life._

_ And so it does._

_ Like Julien it all goes up in flames, and burns itself to ash._

-oOo-


	6. Moonlighting

**: TWIST OF FATE :**

**_PART ONE: _****DRIVE**

**(6) - Moonlighting -**

Another day, another motel room.

And he was down to the very last cigarette in his battered packet.

"_Merde._"

Remy LeBeau stood by the window in his underwear and weighed it up, turning the single stick of tobacco between his thumb and forefinger. He could save it for later. For a rainy day perhaps. And today definitely wasn't a rainy day…

"Fuck it."

He threw the window open and lit it anyway.

"Those things'll kill yah," Rogue's voice sounded huskily from the bed.

"Yeah, well," he replied, sucking gratefully on the cigarette, "dis my last one. Till I get to a store anyways."

"Hmph," was her only reply – she'd been trying to get him to quit for days now, and it was always _those things'll kill yah_ and _not those darn cancer sticks again_, and he'd answer _in dis line of work I could die of any number of t'ings before I die of cancer…_

But he hadn't bought a new pack. Maybe it was time to quit after all. Maybe…

He glanced back over his shoulder at Rogue, lying naked on the bed all twisted in the sheets like some Grecian goddess… And already half asleep.

It was a role she played admirably.

Sleeping Beauty.

They'd been meandering their way west at a leisurely pace – Chicago still seemed a world away, and to be honest it was the last thing on both their minds. The past couple of weeks had been a blur of cheap hotels and guesthouses, four lonely walls that looked the same whichever state you happened to be in. These would be the backdrop to their lives for two, three, four days at a time, time spent imprinting one another into otherwise anonymous beds that had become their fortresses, their castles, their cradles.

Remy blew a cloud of smoke out into the night and gave a half smile to himself.

Honeymoon period. He knew it'd wear off soon. It always did. Well, it never had with Belle, but… It'd never had the chance to with her.

And that was part of the reason he'd held back from Rogue.

_Held back_? He stifled a laugh. Driven himself half crazy, more like. Beautiful Rogue, with a body that could kill and a soul that could save. She was all kinds of drug to him. And he'd asked her to come with him. To spend each day with him, torturing him with her presence. _I have you now. You're mine._

_I win, you lose._

But… But what if he didn't _want_ her anymore? What if this was all a mistake, and he'd end up regretting it?

No, that wasn't it.

The problem was, _what if this ain't a mistake and I get invested in this and it all ends horribly wrong like it did wit' Belle?_

Correction.

He was already invested.

Shit.

Rogue stirred behind him on a soft intake and exhale of breath and it took an exercise of will for him to ignore it.

The past two weeks seemed to have been a haze of sex and skin and flesh, but through it all, in the tangle of limbs and sweet, sweet kisses, he felt it very clearly. _He was already invested_. In her, in what they shared. Hell, he had been for a long time. But back then, in the safe house, it had been risk-free. Just pure sensation for a night and then back to a life where either one of them could end up dead and that would be that. No strings attached sex. At least, it'd had the _pretence_ of no strings attached.

Here, now, the whole pretence thing was harder to pull off.

And it wasn't getting better. It was getting worse. Each moment he spent with her he was forging another unbreakable link with her. The intensity of his emotions would grow, not subside. The thing he'd been fearing all along was happening and it was deliciously addictive and he didn't want to stop it.

"_Merde_," he murmured to himself, palming his face, feeling the rasp of stubble between his fingers.

_Don't you dare go do it, LeBeau. Don't you dare go fall in love again._

Too late. He'd already tipped that scale a long time gone.

He stubbed out the cigarette on the sill, his very last one gone, and he guessed now there wouldn't be another one. Not if she had anything to say about it. It'd kind of been a joke between them the past few days, but the reality was, he'd do it if she wanted it hard enough.

_Dis how it happens. She's already doin' it. Makin' you into someone else…_

And right now, he didn't mind. He never had. The pull she had on him, to make him into a better person… It was the thing he'd been dreading and searching for his entire life.

She stirred again, and he shut the window quietly, went to the bed, slid in under the covers. The chill of the night was dispelled by the warmth radiating from her. He lay there and stared at her back a long time. How many men had done the same, he wondered. Lain here and wanted this beautiful creature. Real jealousy surged in him, just for a moment, and on an impulse he reached out, laid his palm on her shoulder blade, claimed her for his own.

She seemed to come to life at his touch, shifting and then swivelling onto her back, smiling up at him with sleepy, green eyes, her glance making his chest tighten pleasurably.

"Thought you were asleep," he murmured.

"Was halfway there…" she murmured back, "…but Ah'm always awake for you, sugah."

_You shouldn't say stuff like dat, chere._

But only because, yes, she really should.

He pulled back the covers slightly and ran the back of a finger lazily from her collarbone and up the smooth slope of her breast.

"We should leave tomorrow," he said, more to himself than to her.

"Oh?"

Her tone was noncommittal, disinterested even. It gave him a certain satisfaction to realise that she wasn't all rearing to go and find Logan anymore.

"_Oui_." His finger circled the crest of her nipple, before trailing back down the underside of her breast and caressing her there. "De sooner we get to Chicago…"

He trailed off, his finger running the swell of her breast, back and forth, not wanting to say it.

"The sooner we get to Chicago, the sooner we stop 'concentrating' on each other?" she finished for him and he laughed.

"If you wanna put it dat way…"

"Ah hear yah," she said softly, reaching out and stroking his jaw affectionately. "Yah need a shave."

"Hm."

He smiled down at her and she smiled up at him. And Chicago went far away again.

"Do we really need to leave tomorrow?" she asked.

"We can sleep on it," he suggested blithely.

"Hmm. And here Ah was, thinkin' sleepin' wasn't your thing, sugah."

She reached out a foot and hooked his thigh, shifting it between her legs and in line with her own. He raised an eyebrow.

"Are you tryin' t' sabotage my carefully laid plans?"

"No. Ah just can't get enough of you…"

"Do you actually wanna find Logan any time soon?"

She paused a moment, her foot stroking the length of his calf before replying: "Ah guess he can wait then. Till tomorrow."

"Okay. Tomorrow it is den."

He kissed her.

"Hang on," he added breathlessly, breaking away slightly. "Are you even gonna be _awake_ by tomorrow afternoon?"

A chuckle sounded in her throat, low and infinitely sexy.

"Depends on when this all-night party ends, sugah."

She wrapped her legs round him.

And that pretty much settled it.

-oOo-

Jean-Luc had always had a rule.

Good money goes after good. Bad money goes after bad.

The hoodoo mamas and Creole locals back home had an age-old superstition that mixing the two would bring about a whole mess of shit luck.

Pretty tough creed for a thief to live by. Jean-Luc had always insisted it was possible. So said the creed of the New Orleans Thieves Guild.

Remy lived by it. Mostly. When he could. This particular mission was a good cause, a pure one (despite the fact that it seemed to be taking on the complexion of a particularly dirty weekend – he'd smiled to himself wryly at the witticism), and therefore the money that funded it had to be clean.

The thing was, clean was a matter of perspective, and Remy probably wasn't the best person to judge what was clean and what was not. He figured there was going to be some point when the whole thing would come back and bite him on the ass.

And as he paced the motel room balcony that was barely big enough to swing a cat in, he also figured that time had probably come.

"So," Henri's voice crackled over the bad line, "_pere's_ noticed money's been goin' outta your trust fund."

Remy halted mid-step, rolled his eyes.

"So what? It's my money."

"_Oui_. And it was frozen after you left. Dat was ten years ago."

"You know me, Henri, I have ways of gettin' in…"

"Yeah. I know you do. So what, _mon frere_? You goin' straight or somet'ing? No more heists? No more crazy capers? No more high end art thefts? Dat why you gotta steal from yourself?"

"I'm on a project," he retorted, biting back unsuccessfully on his irritation.

"Yeah. We know. A pretty big one. We've been following the money trail from New York all de way west in de direction of Chicago."

Remy swore under his breath.

"Didn't know you were still so interested in a fuckin' _exile, mon ami,_" he shot back sarcastically. "One dat's been gone for, what, ten frickin' years…"

"Sure we exiled you," Henri's voice said dryly. "Dat don't mean we _wanted_ to, Remy."

"You are just breakin' _mon coeur_," he replied acidly. "Look, tell Jean-Luc to stay de hell outta my bus'ness. I'm in on dis trip for de long haul and I need de funds. And it's _my_ fuckin' money, _d'accord_?"

"Long haul?" Henri laughed. "Sounds like there's some _femme_ involved in dis, _mon frere_. You lazy – 'less you're motivated by money. Money dat ain't your own, leastways. Last time you got like dis was wit' Belle—"

"Say dat name again and I will fuckin' _kill_ you."

"So it _is_ a _femme_," Henri chuckled, unfazed by a threat he knew to be empty. "Shoulda known. Ten years ain't changed you much, Remy."

"_Bec mon chu!_" he fired back, cutting off the call and kicking the rail viciously as he did so.

Rogue was sitting on the windowsill darning a hole in one of her shirts.

"You still playin' _Madame_, _chere_?" he asked her, a little more crossly than he'd intended. "I told you. Go out an' buy somet'ing nice, go _pouponer_ yourself a bit, neh?"

A small smile tugged at her lips.

"Hm. Spicy."

"_Quoi_?" He threw the phone onto the nightstand as if it were something distasteful.

"Your accent. You been callin' home or somethin'?"

She was so close to the mark that it irritated him even more.

"Damn. _Oui_. If you can still _call_ it home."

She looked at him curiously. He knew the question behind that look. _If you hate them so much, why call?_

"It was for de sweet _Mameaux_, _chere,_" he explained, rubbing his fingers with his thumb.

"Money?"

"_Oui_. Dey was onto me. Started playin' games wit' my account, jus' t' piss me off. Had to call 'em out on it."

She said nothing. He'd never explained to her where he was getting his money from since they'd left New York, and he knew she assumed that he was getting it from less than legitimate means.

"Remy…"

"_Non_. Please don't 'Remy' me. Not now."

He was too ashamed. Too ashamed to admit that he, one of the best thieves in the world, had resorted to embezzling himself. And why? Because of her. Because of a woman.

Remy slumped heavily into the only chair in the room. He brooded as she laid aside her sewing and walked up behind him, laying her hands gently on his shoulders.

"Darlin'…" she began and;

"_Chere_…" he finished.

Silence. Her fingers were warm and light, soothing him despite himself.

"I know what we can do, _chere_," he spoke presently.

"Oh? What's that?"

"You an' me, out on de town. I clean my account, we get all dressed up nice an' fine, head to some wild party. Den we book into de swankiest hotel we can find… bathe in champagne and roses, and make love on a bed of dollar bills until de sun comes up and we're both screwed so senseless neither of us can think straight."

Because he needed it. He needed nothing but pure, raw sensation, something to take away his thoughts and even his feelings and to make him _forget…_

Rogue circled the chair and eased herself into his lap, clasping her fingers round the back of his neck, massaging him with her thumbs and saying humorously: "Does this happen to be one of your crazy fantasies you're lettin' me in on here, sugah?"

"_Non._ I just came up wit' it on de top of my head. Although any fantasy wit' you in it is bound to be a fuckin' excellent one."

"Ha!" she smiled mischievously at him. "Yah sure know how to sweet talk a gal."

"Years of practice, _chere_," he replied dryly. "Dat's what it is."

No smiles this time. Her fingers twined into the hair at the nape of his neck, tugging at the locks gently, making his spine tingle pleasurably. She took it all away… all the feelings, all the thoughts, drowned it all in her touch… And yet she was the reason he thought, the reason he felt. She was the reason he would blow all caution to the wind, the reason he'd spent countless sleepless nights he could've spent with someone else. She was the reason he wanted to hold on and the reason he wanted to let go. The excuse to end up falling into a place that scared the shit out of him, and the one motivation for him to avoid falling over that edge at all costs.

She confused the hell out of him, and he hadn't felt like that since… Well, since Belle, actually.

"What is it?" she asked him, breaking his train of thought.

"Huh?"

"You're frownin'. Am Ah hurtin' you?"

She unwound her fingers from his hair.

"_Non_." He grasped her hands in his, placed them back about his neck. "It's nothin'. I was just thinkin'…"

"About home?" she prompted softly. Again, he was astonished at how much she seemed to be able to read him. Was he really so transparent?

"It's not home," he corrected her again. "Not anymore."

He knew she wondered. He knew she wondered why he wouldn't talk about it, his past, the people in his life, whatever it was that had cast him adrift from everything he had known and loved. It wasn't that he didn't trust her with the knowledge – it was just a part of him he preferred to keep to himself. She knew more about him than most people did. That unnerved him, in a way. There were parts of himself he didn't want exposed, that he didn't want to share, not even with her. In a way, he was glad that she had never absorbed him. It meant he got to keep his secrets.

And she smiled as if she understood.

"It's okay. Ah wasn't fishin'. You don't need to explain."

But there were times he would have. When she was lying there beside him at night and everything was quiet, and he felt closest to her… Those were the times, almost lost in sleep, that he would have explained to her anything she would like, if she'd asked him.

She moved to slide off his lap, but he stopped her, taking her hand and saying; "Anna."

She stopped, looked at him. He hadn't called her that before, not since she'd told him it was her name. Her real name. The name of the girl hidden deep inside. Her green eyes were wide with surprise, and he took her face between his palms, looked straight into them and murmured: "I'd tell you everythin' if you asked. You do know dat, don't you."

"Only if you were drunk enough. Or possibly loved up enough." And a grin lit her face.

"Neither," he bantered back with a laugh in his voice. "And I ain't tellin' you when I'm most vulnerable to your charms, _chere_. You can figure it out for yourself."

Her smile turned to a pout and he couldn't help it. He kissed it, slow and deep and passionate until he was through her defences and she had no choice but to kiss him back. A soft, sweet, borderline chaste kiss, the kind she would tease him with, because she knew that when she was at her most romantic, her most wistful and innocent that he liked her best. Sometimes he really wasn't sure who was seducing who.

She pulled away with a breathless chuckle, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.

"Maybe Ah _have_ already figured it out, sugah, and you just don't know it," she shot at him playfully. He frowned and she kissed him again, this time with real chasteness.

"Don't you worry none, sugah. You could tell me anythin', the craziest lies in the world, and Ah'd believe you every time."

"No you wouldn't."

"Yes Ah would."

"No you wouldn't. Why de hell would you do dat? Even _I_ wouldn't trust me."

She looked him straight in the eye, not a trace of a smile on her lips and said; "B'cause Ah love you." And there was that smile again, small and soft and utterly heart-wrenching, and she placed her palm over his heart, murmured; "Ah love you, Remy LeBeau."

It was the first time she'd said it. In words, not with her looks, her glances, her body. He'd known already, of course. He'd known for years now. But hearing it, from her lips, right there in front of him… it was different. It was tangible, it was real. It took his breath away. _I have you. You're mine. _Body, heart and soul, he had her. She was _his_. And he hadn't even had to trick her into it.

He held her gaze, knowing he should say something – anything – a glib reply, a deft attempt at witty repartee… or even the words that were pushing at his lips right at that very moment. And he'd mean them. He thought.

He opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Because he wasn't _sure_, and he didn't want to make it _real_ if he wasn't sure that it wasn't going to kill him first.

Her smile didn't even flicker, though a certain wryness curled the corner of her lip.

"It's okay," she reassured him quietly. "You don't have to say it."

And she leaned in and kissed him again, all torturous sensuousness, all _exactly what he needed_, and he grasped her hips, pressed her against him, and she was his, _all his_, and he could do whatever he wanted to her except love her with all his heart.

-oOo-

It was long past midnight when the call came.

By the time the fifth ring had sounded he knew it wouldn't stop till he'd picked up, so he reached out for the nightstand one-handed, knocking over a few things noisily before finally locating his cell phone. It was Clarity.

"Can't you call me when I ain't busy, _homme_?" he grumbled in lieu of a greeting, whilst Rogue kissed a lazy trail down the length of his torso. The voice of the man who never slept and never loved was humorous, unapologetic in its reply.

"Y' told me t' call ya whenever I got some news. And well, I got some news, bro. So I called."

"Damn." He gave a sharp intake of breath as Rogue's distractions got a little _too_ distracting. "Dis better be good," he muttered uncharitably, guiding her safely up north; the trail of kisses meandered back the way it had come.

"Hey, I ever disappointed you, man?" Clarity was unmoved; he was used to this kind of thing by now. "Lissen. It's that side project o' yours."

Side project. Remy searched his mind through a haze of pleasure. To be honest the only project on his mind right now was the one currently in hand. Literally.

"Wha'?" He'd barely got the word out when it was abruptly curtailed by Rogue nipping his lower lip once, twice, finally drawing it into a kiss that tasted of crushed strawberries.

"Y'_know_," the other man's voice rose with impatience. "That _Black Womb_ project I was tellin' you 'bout before you left?"

He underlined the two syllables with an expressive emphasis. Remy blinked, suddenly alert, drawing his mouth away from Rogue's a little too swiftly for a moment involving more teeth than tongue. "I 'member," was all he said, in an entirely different tone of voice. Rogue heard it. She drew back, gazed at him questioningly. The look in his eyes communicated to her that he needed to take this.

"Well, I managed to dig up some of their old files," Clarity was saying as Rogue pouted, sighed and rolled away. "Don't ask me how – most of it was classified, half of it redacted, but hey… I have my ways…"

"I know." Remy propped himself up against the headboard, watching as Rogue got up, slipped on one of his discarded T-shirts, and padded into the bathroom. "So what?"

"Well, I copied it all for you, didn't I? Jus' like you asked?"

"So you decided to call me at… what…" he glanced over at the alarm clock on the nightstand, "five after one in de mornin'? Jus' t' tell me dat?"

"Rems, you're always busy. How'm I s'pposed to know when's the best time to call? Anyhow," the usually cheap and cheerful voice launched straight on with a barely concealed irritation, "there's some stuff you need to see for yourself. Essex is in there. And Irene Adler."

There was a pregnant pause; Remy's eyebrows shot up, his breath hitched.

"Rems? You still there?"

He let out the pent up breath, momentarily lost for words, as Rogue re-emerged, yawning heavily.

"Yup." He paused again, his brain working furiously before saying: "So. How fast can you set up a drop?"

"Tomorrow evenin' is the earliest you're gonna get it, I'm 'fraid. Where are you right now?"

Remy leaned over, looked at the grimy notepad he'd left on the nightstand earlier on that day. "Lil' Stratford's. Just off the I-76 goin' up to de Penn Lincoln Parkway."

He heard the quick tap, tap-tapping of fingers on a keyboard. "What, you're on a fuckin' toll road?" Clarity's tone was incredulous.

"Yeah, well," Remy shrugged as Rogue joined him back on the bed. "Let's jes' say I got some insurance."

"Whatever, man." Clarity had already lost interest. "I gotcha. Looks like there's some boxes I can make the drop in near where you are. Should have the files there by 7pm tomorrow. I'll send you the coordinates."

"Great. I owe you one, _mon ami_."

"Don't mention it." And the line went dead.

Remy placed the phone back on the nightstand, his mind spinning. Trying to see the fit. Irene Adler, working with Essex? It didn't make sense. Okay, so he didn't know much about Irene, but he knew enough to assume that she wouldn't have aided him in his twisted experiments. Or would she? One thing he had learned over the years was that Irene followed only one person's agenda – her own. And sometimes that agenda wasn't always strictly benign.

He leaned back against the headboard and chewed on his bottom lip thoughtfully.

"That Clarity?" Rogue asked beside him.

"_Oui_," he replied distractedly.

"Anythin' important?"

He hesitated. It hadn't been his intention to tell her about any of this, but he figured he'd have to at some point. At least, he'd figured that until Clarity had mentioned Irene's name. Rogue had had a complicated relationship with her foster mother, and it didn't need any more complicating until he was sure what cards he held and how he should deal them to her. So he reached out and tugged playfully at the hem of the T-shirt she was wearing.

"Just a side project. I'll tell y' in de mornin', _chere_."

The look she gave him told him she was only half buying it. He knew it. She knew it. There were just some things he couldn't fool her over.

"Hm." The sound was laced with a heavy dose of irony. "Side project, huh?"

"Yup." He shifted sideways slightly, hiked the tee up above her midriff, deciding that this conversation needed to be over and that they needed to pick up where they'd left off. "Now where were we?"

"You were about to tell me if this 'side project' is the one you were discussin' with Clarity just before we left New York," she returned sardonically, watching him roll the T-shirt upward and not attempting to stop him. He paused.

"Was I?" He answered with a casual hitch of the mouth that didn't take her in one bit.

"Uh huh." It was a game they often played now, turning their secrets and riddles into the subjects of flirty repartee. "Not to mention the reason _why_ this 'side project' has to be so damn secret."

"Funny," he remarked, finally getting her out of that darn shirt of his and tossing it aside. "Dat ain't what I remember."

He grazed his fingertips over her body, a body without imperfections apart from a single flaw – a small mole on the slope of her right breast, one that peeked over the edge of the low cut tops she rarely wore. It was currently his favourite part of her. Flaw or not it begged to be kissed and kissed. Which is exactly what he did.

"That important, huh?" she asked him wryly, her fingers playing lightly through his hair.

"What?" he murmured between kisses.

"Your side project." Her voice dropped a notch. "Dontcha always do this, sugah? Avoid an inconvenient question with a very convenient kiss?"

He chuckled softly, removed his lips to look directly in her green eyes, eyes that were bright both with desire and the fact that she had caught him out. He would explain things to her, when the time was right. Here, now, he didn't know enough himself to tell her. Especially not about Irene Adler's role in all this.

"It ain't a secret, chere," he assured her. "I'll tell ya tomorrow. When I get de intel. Now," and he leaned forward and kissed the smooth dip between her chin and her lower lip, "you gonna stop distractin' me or what?"

She smiled. He knew because he felt that smile move against his lips. There were some things that were his and his alone. Just like he knew there were some things she could never tell him. But she asked no more questions, because she trusted him, trusted a man full of lies whose entire life had been based on wheedling, cajoling, stealing truths out of others. What she gave him in that smile – he knew what it was. It was trust. And he was still learning to be comfortable with it, to meet it with an honesty that had never come easy to him.

Buttercream skin and cinnamon hair. _That_ was his distraction. It was a distraction from this one thing at the back of his mind, the one thing he knew he couldn't, wouldn't tell her.

It was the fact that throughout the labyrinth of events and happenstance that had shaped their lives, in the map he had mentally drawn in the weeks since the Hound Pens, there was one person who loomed large, who waited at every corner.

And that person was Irene Adler.

-oOo-

Remy was preoccupied. More so than usual.

He stirred the ramen in his bowl first one way, then another. When he finished his beer, he ordered another without looking up from his lukewarm food. Then another, in quick succession.

"Everythin' okay, sugah?" Rogue asked, when the waiter had slapped the third bottle onto the table between them. "Thought this was just gonna be your standard drop?"

Remy looked up at her from behind the rims of his shades. He took a swig from the bottle.

"Yah," he answered shortly. "It is."

He couldn't tell anymore whether he was being cagey because it was what he did, or whether it was because he was trying to protect her. Maybe both. He still wasn't sure he liked it. The responsibility he had. For her.

When he'd woken up that morning, she'd been standing at the window with an absent look on her face. She'd gone through moments like that quite a bit recently. Moments when he'd call her name and she wouldn't respond. When she'd finally turn and look at him like she'd awoken from a dream. It'd been happening since… Well, since she'd absorbed Devereux, actually. It worried him, but not enough to make him ask her about it.

When he'd finally got her attention they'd had sex. Again. And it had taken him right back. Right back to a night, a morning, an afternoon spent with Belle, and this thing, this thing called _love_ that sucked you in and spat you out. And he'd said to himself, it's been six weeks, it's been six weeks together but that doesn't _mean_ we're _together_, it doesn't mean anything being here with her like this. It can mean anything you want it to mean, and that includes _nothing_.

Nothing.

The memory of the warm, undulating tangle of their bodies as they moved against one another. The softness of their moans as they came. Nothing and everything. Every single damn time.

Remy wiped his face with the palm of his hand. He was thinking about _that_ again. When what he needed to think about was _this_.

Because a job left undone was like fingernails on a chalkboard to him. Whatever the hell all this meant, he was in for the duration. Just a mission. Just a job. One that involved _her_, and whatever the hell this was between them.

_Shit. Again. Stop it. Focus._

He needed to focus.

"Rogue?"

She looked up from a spoonful of soup.

"Yeah?"

"Did you…?" He was stirring the ramen again, eyes on the bowl. "Have you ever heard of the de Black Womb project?"

She stared at him a long moment. It was a look that showed no recognition, except for recognition of the fact that he was finally coming clean with her at last.

"No," she replied honestly. "Why?"

He shrugged. "Thought Raven or someone mighta mentioned it or somethin'…"

She shook her head briefly. "Nope. Doesn't ring any bells." She paused, set her spoon down. "Why? Is that what this 'drop' is all about?"

He looked up at her this time.

"Yeah. Kinda. Dis project was started in de Sixties or somethin'. Mutant engineering. Woulda thought maybe Irene had caught wind of it, wit' her visions and all dat…"

He trailed off, still looking at her, willing her to remember something, _anything_. She seemed suddenly uncomfortable, as if faced with something she would rather not see. Her glance darted away.

"Sorry," she answered shortly, her voice hoarse. "Truth is, neither Raven or Irenie trusted me with Destiny's predictions. Whatever Ah did find out, Ah wasn't s'pposed to know…" She swallowed a breath, raising her eyes to his again. He guessed then that she had looked into the Diaries before. That she had _seen_ things, like he had – things she wasn't ready to talk about.

"And what _did_ you find out?" he asked her quietly. Her gaze dropped to the bowl in front of her.

"Nothin' important. Nothin' that made sense anyhow."

_Nothing that made sense._ He wasn't sure that was the truth – sometimes the craziest things made the coldest sort of sense. He knew that for a fact. It was the reason he was here, after all. But he wasn't going to call her out on it, not now. He merely nodded, finally spooning some soup into his mouth. It was cold; he pulled a face and pushed the bowl away from him, taking another swig of beer instead.

They hadn't been silent for long when his phone pinged. He was on it like a flash.

"Clarity?" she asked.

"Yup – he just sent the coordinates." He took out his wallet, started counting out bills. "You done?"

"Pretty much." She downed the rest of her beer and slid off the stool as he threw the money on the table before slipping the phone and wallet back into his duster pocket. He was out the door before she'd even thrown in a tip.

Rain was falling cold and hazy on another nameless Pennsylvanian town, a town small enough to be spared the Sentinels and the Hounds, but not the other casual iniquities pronounced by the government's anti-mutant legislation. Here, as everywhere it seemed, the Friends of Humanity had a large presence, and the usual harassment of those local mutants who couldn't seem to keep their heads down appeared to be rife.

Clarity's postal box was located in a small office on the seedier side of town. The guy in the lobby said nothing when asked for the key – he was given it without any further need for questions, and within a minute or so Remy was back out on the street with the brown paper envelope in his hands.

Rogue, who'd been waiting outside in the shadows, pushed herself away from the wall as he came out.

"Got it?" she asked.

"Uh huh." He flashed the envelope at her.

"Clarity sure works fast," she remarked sardonically. "You sure he works alone?"

"Most of de time. Doesn't mean he don't pull strings now and again. He has guys everywhere. Think de guy in there was one o' them."

Across the street, a Catholic church stood shabby and incongruous to the rest of the buildings that surrounded it. A service was taking place inside. Remy could hear the tuneless strains of an organ, accompanied by the equally tuneless singing of a dwindling congregation joined in querulous harmony. There was nothing beautiful or striking about the sound – but Remy nevertheless found himself being tugged back to a memory from his childhood.

Every Sunday Jean-Luc had taken him and Henri to church, a grandiose old building that could not have been more different to the one he stood in front of today. Within had lain equally imposing sights – the glistening of candlelight on gilded statuary, the cool smoothness of marble pillars, the pungent musk of frankincense, the strange intonations of the priest speaking words he could barely understand.

He remembered once sitting next to Henri in the pews as the service had droned on amidst the reverent silence of the worshippers. He'd been about – what? – nine or ten at the time, Henri a little older. Mass was always the battle ground for the ongoing war they had been fighting practically since infancy. Remy was the younger, yet he had not failed to notice that he superseded his brother in almost everything – in strength, agility, looks, intelligence. The brothers loved one another, and loved one another dearly – if Henri had been jealous, he'd never outright said so. Their war was of a more perfunctory fraternal kind, a war of attrition to see which would last the battle and which would capitulate first. In the absence of other distractions – of which both boys had always had plenty – it was a game they'd never failed to tire of. It had been the highlight of every Sunday, apart from Tante Mattie's regular Sabbath lunch.

On this one particular occasion they'd been standing on one another's feet, each trying to get the other to cry out first. The idea had been to bear the pain in silence for as long as humanly possible. Fifteen minutes of such torture had passed without either surrendering; long enough, in fact for the game to have become boring. Even at a young age, Remy had not been afraid of cheating if he knew he was the better man. When it came Henri's turn to undergo the gruelling test, he had dispensed with the usual form of attack entirely and simple dropped the kneeler on his foot. He was left with the satisfaction of Henri yelping out loud and having to be escorted outside the church by Tante Mattie, bawling, before he caused even more of a scene. As for Remy, he had been dragged up the aisle by the scruff of his neck by an irate Jean-Luc, grinning at the disapproving faces of the congregation as he made his shameful exit from a respected house of God.

"Why did you do that?" Jean-Luc had asked him seriously once they were outside the church and the singing had begun again. "Did Henri say or do somet'ing to annoy you?"

"_Non_," Remy had replied impishly. "I did it 'cos I could."

Jean-Luc had sighed and sat back on his haunches whilst Remy stood before him with his lower lip sticking out defiantly.

"Remy, doing somet'ing just 'cos you can' is not good enough," he'd explained patiently. "Everyt'ing must be done for a reason. De Guild does not harm and it does not steal wit'out good cause. And a man must always respect three things – women, his family, and de good Lord – before he can respect himself."

"All right," Remy pouted rebelliously. "I did it 'cos I wanted to prove to Henri I'm better den him. To prove dat he's not my brother."

A look had crossed Jean-Luc's face then. The kindly face grew stern, the gentle brown eyes penetrating.

"What d'you mean by dat, boy?" he inquired sharply, his tone so abrupt that Remy knew, instinctively, that he had hit upon a thread of truth – but he hadn't afforded himself the luxury of triumph.

"I mean dat I ain't his brother," he'd answered simply, soberly. "Ain't it obvious? We're different." He'd paused before finally confessing the truth that had been nagging at him for a long time now. "He don't have my eyes. _No one_ has my eyes."

Again, something changed in Jean-Luc's gaze. The smile on his face was all at once one of pride, relief and sadness.

"You're right. He's not your brother."

He'd _known _it, known he was right all along…

"And you're not _mon pere_?"

"I am your _pere_ in every way dat matters, son," Jean-Luc had replied. It was the most honest Remy could ever remember him being with him. He'd thought about it a moment, then nodded.

"My eyes… what do dey mean?" he'd asked eagerly. He'd seen the way people looked at them – sometimes with fascination, sometimes with fear. Sometimes with a mixture of both. As if they knew as little about what they meant as he had.

"It means you're a mutant," Jean-Luc returned simply.

"An' what's a mutant?"

"A special type of person. Someone who has unique and special gifts. Magic powers, if you will."

Remy had frowned at that.

"I ain't got no magic powers."

"Not yet, anyhow," Jean-Luc had explained patiently. "A few more years perhaps, and they will come. You'll see."

But he'd wanted to see _now_…

Jean-Luc had stood, put a hand on his shoulder.

"Now let's go back before de service ends. And try not to cause another scene, boy. You'll be de death of your dear sainted mother."

But he knew now that beautiful Marguerite LeBeau had not been his mother, not really.

"_Poppa_?" he'd asked curiously, as they'd walked back towards the church.

"What?"

"Where did I come from, _poppa_? Who's my real _mere_ and _pere_?"

There had been a slight pause in Jean-Luc's step, a split second start that even then Remy had not failed to notice. When he'd looked up into his foster-father's face he'd seen the tautness of his jaw, the crease of his brow. And in that instant he'd learned the difference between someone who _knows_ the truth, and one who _fears_ the truth. And he knew that Jean-Luc did not know the answer to his question.

"Don't ask me dat question, Remy," he'd answered in a low, grave tone that told him no more was to be said on the matter. He'd tugged the boy onward with a jerk of the hand, and for a long time after Remy had not asked again.

They began to head slowly back to their cheap motel, Rogue turning up the hood of her jacket against the rain; he sensed that idle chatter was the last thing she wanted. It was only the joyless sound of a broken hymn that he heard as they walked, side by side, in silence.

It wasn't long before he became aware of the sound of muffled cries nearby; a tune he knew well, the sound of someone in great distress. Across the street, partially obscured by the doorway of a closed store, two men were kicking and stamping on a prone form at their feet, what at first seemed to be a trash bag but he quickly recognised as a woman in a black PVC duster who was desperately defending herself from the blows with the flailing of two skinny arms. A woman in a barely there tank top and hot pants, with skin like a snake's. A hooker. A mutant. One who couldn't hide it.

Something in his stomach twisted like a knife blade, and he stood, temporarily numbed by the sight as the woman begged and pleaded as they rained down abuse on her. _Mutie. Whore. Slut._ And it was a moment too long before he realised that Rogue had broken away from him and was marching towards the small group with purpose in her stride. He called her name but she didn't seem to hear; when he jogged after her he knew he wouldn't reach her in time. It was nothing more or less than instinct – even as he went after her he'd whipped out a card in the same moment, charged it a mere wisp, more than enough, he thought, for a warning shot, one that never came.

He watched Rogue advance as if in slow motion, a fistful of knuckleduster flashing out of her pocket and driving forward into the jaw of the nearest man with a right hook Remy hadn't seen her use since their days with the X-Men. A short, sharp, stabbing motion that floored the unfortunate thug before he'd even had the chance to clock her. All it'd taken was a single blow.

In the space of time it took him to gain another two steps on her, the fallen man's companion had swung round on Rogue with a pistol in his hand. Remy didn't even find the split second to call out her name, to let loose the still-charged card in his hand when the gun went off. And again. And again.

_BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, click, click, click…_

She was right in front of him, despite having taken every single shot fired at her, and she reached out with an ungloved hand, her palm descending over the man's aghast, uncomprehending face and —

The next moment he had dropped like a stone to the floor.

The hooker had no time for thanks or gratitude. The man had barely hit the ground before she had taken off into the rain; she was all right, she'd survive another day. Remy hardly saw her. He was behind Rogue now as she stood, perfectly still, looking down at the two crumpled heaps on the floor. He reached out, touched her shoulder, her skin hard and unyielding under his grasp. Then he saw her hands, her profile. Every inch of her exposed skin was metal, glinting with a silvery sheen in the rainfall.

He could barely get a word out. He didn't understand. He didn't understand at all.

"Rogue," he spoke, and she suddenly seemed to notice him. She glanced up at him with a face that wasn't hers, with the glazed eyes of a somnambulist. She blinked, once, twice. Something of her seemed to come back.

And then suddenly the metal disappeared off her skin like the plates of an armadillo gathering in on themselves, _shuck, shuck, shuck, shuck, shuck_.

Remy gaped with recognition.

Colossus. His power.

One of the men, the man she'd hit with the knuckleduster, was stirring, moaning softly as he began to come round. Rogue showed no signs of moving, and Remy placed a hand on her shoulder, nudged her quietly away from the scene.

She said nothing, and neither did he.

_Go ghost_, he thought_. Time to go fuckin' ghost._

He pressed a hand against the small of her back, passing a group of chattering pedestrians, laughing faces in the window of a bar. It was all like a scene from someone else's bad dream.

"Remy?" she suddenly spoke, as if awakening from that dream, as if his name could break it.

"Hush, Rogue," he said.

He led her onward, and together they hurried down into the mist of a rain-swept street.

-oOo-


	7. In Mind

**: TWIST OF FATE :**

**_PART ONE: _****DRIVE**

**(7) - In Mind -**

"How de _fuck_ did you do dat?"

Remy was agitated, pacing the same spot of only a couple of square feet, leaving a trail of water droplets in his wake. Rogue stood in the doorway of their motel room and carefully drew back the hood of her jacket. She felt… odd. Not bad. Just strangely detached. This had happened to her before, of course – when she tapped into a psyche and let it take over because it was convenient for her. It just hadn't happened quite like this. So quickly. When just _looking_ at a threat had kicked in somebody else's power.

"Ah dunno," she answered after a moment.

Remy stopped, turned to her. She saw consternation on his face. No – something more than consternation. As though he'd dodged a bullet and the relief of that escape hadn't yet fully outweighed the horror that certain death had stood right there before him.

"Y' mean t' tell me you didn't _plan_ what you did back there?"

She thought about it: the moment when the guy had drawn the gun on her and she'd walked right into its line of fire. She hadn't remembered any fear. Mind you, she couldn't remember channelling Colossus' power either.

"Ah dunno," she repeated with a disconcerted shrug. "It just happened. Ah just knew Ah didn't want those bullets to hit me, that's all. And they didn't."

His expression relaxed a little; but it was only a little. His fingers were moving at his sides, as if he wanted to reach out and touch her but didn't dare.

"_Dieu_, Rogue," he spoke on a long drawn out exhalation, "I thought… for a split second I thought you were _dead_…"

He trailed off, his gaze suddenly distracted by something at her midriff. She looked down and saw that there were tears in her shirt where the bullets had hit. Wordlessly she pulled apart the front of her wet jacket and raised the tattered material. Remy froze. A myriad of angry round bruises formed a mottled pattern all the way from her stomach up to her chest. She examined them curiously.

"Interestin'," she murmured. "Colossus could deflect bullets, but he couldn't stop them hurtin'. He must've been covered in these things. Ah never thought about it till now."

Remy grunted doubtfully, reaching out and touching one of the marks on her stomach with a thumb. She winced slightly but didn't move.

"Holy hell, he could've killed you," he murmured, as though touching the wounds had brought it home to him just how serious the situation could've been.

The psyche in the corner of her mind flickered.

_And I woulda killed you, if you muties weren't so fuckin' hard to kill._

"Shut up," Rogue hissed, dropping her shirt and frowning. Remy stared at her.

"What'd I say?"

"Nothin'." She shook her head in sudden frustration. "Hang on a minute."

She closed her eyes and focused. Within a matter of seconds the thug's psyche was quiet.

"Wish Ah didn't haveta absorb him…" she sighed.

"He botherin' you?" he asked.

"He was gettin' kinda antsy up there," she explained, gesturing to her temple. "Needed to put him some place he'd be quiet."

He nodded, but she knew he didn't really understand; that all he understood was that she did what she had to. Instead he took her hand in his, peeled off the knuckleduster, lifted it up between them. She looked at it with something like surprise. Up till that moment she hadn't even realised she was still wearing it.

"Where'd you get dis?" he asked her.

"Rita's," she replied after a short moment. He nodded, tight-lipped, and threw it on the bed beside them. An uncertain silence followed, during which he searched her face with a new kind of intensity. There was something behind that look, a curiosity, a dread.

"Why'd you do dat?" he asked her at last. She bristled.

"Wouldn't _you_ have stopped them beatin' on that woman?" she turned the question right back on him. He shook his head.

"Not like dat. For a moment dere I thought dat guy had killed you…" And his eyes wandered involuntarily to the tattered shirt and the bruises that could so easily have been something more, something worse…

"Ah had it under control," she returned flatly, about to move away; but he caught her by the arms, held her there.

"Did you?"

She caught the veiled implication in his tone. Her mouth twisted.

"_Yes_." The word was sibilant, almost fierce. "They coulda killed that woman; that asshole had a gun. God knows he coulda used it. Ah had to help her. Ah had to do _somethin'_."

"We coulda done somethin' _together,_" he corrected her with a brusque shake of the head. "You ran off like you did dat day wit' Guess and Trask – you coulda ended up in a whole new pile o' shit and—"

"And what?" she cut in, exasperated. "Yah woulda _saved _me?"

He bit back an expletive.

"_Merde_, _chere_, don't you get it? If you got killed, on _my_ watch…" He took in a sharp breath, began again. "Rogue, do you understand what I'm sayin'? Do you know de lengths I've gone to keep you alive?"

There was real earnestness in his voice, an admission, almost, of what she meant to him. A begrudging smile touched her lips.

"Touchin'," she observed with just a lilt of sarcasm and conciliation in her voice. "You _do_ care…"

He looked half relieved, half vexed.

"Of course I do."

"Of course you do." Her smile widened, just a little, before it fell. "Dammit, Remy. Yah wanna know the truth? Those assholes just pissed me off. Callin' that woman a slut and a whore…" She paused, blinked away the memories – memories so raw to the bone that it was easier for her to just block them out. "Guess Ah just lost it."

It was the right thing to say. His expression cleared; he reached out and touched the haphazard curls at her cheek, curls dampened by the rain.

"Don't take it personally, _chere_. Those words weren't for you."

"Guess called me the same thing."

He blinked.

"Guess was an asshole an' all."

"Maybe. But what he said was the truth."

He pressed a finger against her lips.

"_Non_. It wasn't."

She didn't respond. She didn't want to argue about it. She felt tired all of sudden. Like everything had been sucked out of her and she had nothing left to give. Even words were a struggle. And her head was aching something vicious. Sleep suddenly seemed the most appealing thing in the world.

Rogue went on tiptoes, raised her face to his and kissed him softly on the lips.

"Thanks," she said, as she broke away from him.

"For what?" he asked.

"For carin'."

And she stripped and got straight into bed.

-oOo-

She woke up the next morning with the mother of all headaches.

When she sat up the world whirled around her, and she squeezed her eyes shut tight, pressed her thumb and forefinger against the bridge of her nose in an attempt to ward off yet another hangover. A 'psyche hangover', as she had now come to call it.

"Mornin'."

She opened her eyes, saw Remy at the low desk by the window in his underwear, sat in front of his laptop. He hadn't even looked at her, yet he'd sensed she was awake.

"Mornin'," she croaked back.

"You okay?"

She gave a non-committal grunt in reply. She couldn't say she felt good, but she couldn't say she felt bad either. She rose from the bed shakily and stood beside it for a moment. Whatever axis the world was tilted on at that moment, it slowly righted itself. The throbbing behind her eyes eased slightly.

"Got any Tylenol?" she asked him.

"In de bathroom." He was distracted by whatever it was on the screen in front of him, and she decided to forget about the Tylenol. Curious now, she walked up behind him, rested a hand on his shoulder. He turned his head slightly, kissed the inside of her wrist by way of greeting.

"What's that?" she queried curiously. The screen was a pixelated blur of database entries spilling down the screen in a flickering cascade of black on white.

"Clarity's 'drop'," Remy replied simply, easing back in the chair while he waited for the data to load up. He scooped up a disc from the desk, held it out to her. She took it; a silver disc marked '_Black Womb 2_' in permanent marker. She guessed '_Black Womb 1_' was the DVD currently whirring in the disc drive of his laptop.

"Hmm. Old school," she remarked with amusement as she handed him back the disc.

"Tell me about it," he sighed explosively. "Do you know how fuckin' annoyin' it is to haveta have kit that supports this fuckin' ancient technology?"

"So why don't he just use memory sticks and stuff?" she asked.

"I dunno." He shrugged. "Somethin' to do with storage. Involves migration and he says he ain't got de time. I told him to leave it another couple of years and he'll be dealin' wit' emulation, and dat's like a thousand times fuckin' worse. But you know Clarity. Creature of habit and all dat."

"Hm." She leaned in, rested her chin in his hair. "So what's this all about then? Ah thought we were s'pposed to be lookin' for X-Men."

"We are. Dis a side project. Don't worry. I'm an expert at compartmentalising."

She started slightly, realising that she'd heard him say those very same words before. _In her head…_

"You mentioned mutant engineering," she spoke up in a low voice. "This is about Sinister, isn't it. _He_ headed up this Black Womb project, am Ah right?"

There was a pause, and she knew he would come clean with her now. At least, she knew from his momentary silence that he was weighing up just how much to tell her.

"You're right," he said at last in a more sober tone. "Truth is, I been workin' on dis side project for years now. Diggin' into Essex's life, trying to get into his mind, trying to see what makes him tick."

She frowned.

"Why?"

He said nothing for a moment, his eyes wandering across the screen, the disc still spilling out its guts onto a 2D plane. The image replayed on his face, caressed the tautness of his jaw.

"Because, _chere_," he replied in an undertone, "I'm hopin' I might uncover somethin' about _me_."

She made no reply. His words didn't surprise her. She had known this, from that day in the snow when she had absorbed him. There was nothing definite about this knowledge she held – no articulated words, no formulated thoughts – these were impressions, vague emotions that swirled about him like shadows and cigarette smoke. They bothered him. _Essex _bothered him.

He looked at her again when she made no response. He had expected her to be shocked, surprised, to have _some _reaction – that she didn't was curious to him.

"You don't look surprised," he noted softly.

Rogue tugged at her lower lip with her teeth. She didn't want to lie to him, but she didn't want to tell him the truth either – that she knew more about him than he would probably be comfortable with.

"You and Essex have a complicated relationship," she spoke after a moment. "Ah can guess that much. And Ah can guess you didn't stay workin' with him for all that time because yah _liked_ the sonuvabitch."

He looked back down at the flickering screen, trying to get the words out, not sure how to explain what he wanted to say.

"Yeah, well," he finally began, "Essex is completely obsessed with the mutant race, with the power it wields. Jean Grey and Scott Summers were one of his obsessions. Rachel was another." He paused, running a finger round the edge of the laptop absently. "Everythin' else is just a game to him. Sport, while he bides his time. When he loses interest in somethin', he throws it away. It's just garbage to him." He met her eyes again, real honesty in them. "He took me in, Rogue. When I was still pretty much just a kid. Sure, he held me t' ransom, but… he took me in jus' de same."

He stared at her, trying to communicate the next words to her with his eyes; she held her breath, waiting, wanting to hear him say it…

"Don't you get it, _chere_?" he finished at last. "He's kept me all dis time. _And he's never thrown me away_. I'm not just a game to him. And I need to know why."

He looked back again, at the list of names, dates and figures flowing down the screen of the computer. She swallowed, finally understanding.

"Y'mean… Y' think that this Black Womb project… You think you'll find your name in there?"

His eyes were still on the screen, his jaw tauter than ever.

"Yes," he murmured. "I think my name is in there."

-oOo-

By the third day, and about fifty miles further east, the headache had finally dissipated.

Remy spent most of the time off the road glued to his laptop. With each passing day he seemed to become more and more frustrated with whatever he was or wasn't finding on the discs Clarity had given him.

One night she woke up to find him sitting on the bed beside her, still scrolling through the list of names slowly, the room bathed in the eerie glow of the computer screen

"No joy?" she asked croakily, her voice still thick with sleep.

"No joy."

His voice was weary. She didn't know how long he'd been at it, but she knew it was too long.

"Yah need to get some sleep," she told him archly, reaching out and touching the small of his back. "Yah can't do this all night."

He yawned.

"I know."

Two minutes went by; the light of the screen was still flickering. She reached out again and tugged on the waistband of his boxers.

"_Remy_…" she began warningly, and he capitulated.

"All right, all right!" She heard the laptop click shut, the room cast back into darkness. The next moment he was getting in under the covers beside her.

"You might not be on there, y'know," she spoke up, when she sensed that he was still wide awake.

"Mebbe." The word was evasive. She rolled onto her side, placed a hand on his chest and said: "You've been lookin' at that thing for _days_, and you still haven't come up with anythin'. Maybe you're just not on it."

"Maybe not under dis name," he answered quietly. "I wasn't born Remy LeBeau, y'know."

"So how d'ya know who t' look for then?"

"A kid," he replied soberly. "Wit' freaky eyes."

His tone gave the lie to the shrug that accompanied it. Somehow or other it always came back to his eyes, this mutation that had marked him out as _not normal _since birth, as one of those rare breeds that was _born_ a monster. It bothered him. It always had. Long after he'd got used to it. Piqued, Rogue propped herself up on her elbows and glared right down at him.

"Remy… sugah… Don't do this to yourself. You are who you are. Why ain't that enough for yah?"

He sighed, his hand touching her hair faintly before saying, "_Nothin's_ enough for me, _chere_," and she raised an eyebrow, replying testily, "Oh? Really? Is _that _why yah asked me to come with you? 'Cos hookin' up with me once a year when yah started gettin' frisky wasn't cuttin' it for you no more?"

She saw it – the faint curve of his smile in the dark.

"You ain't an exception to de rule, Rogue," he murmured back quietly, tugging gently on the lock of hair in his hand. "Havin' you here wit' me 24/7 still don't mean I can get enough of you." He fisted her hair tenderly, wound the strands round his fingers, the gentle pressure of his grip communicating to her far more than mere words could have done. She knew what he wanted. A diversion from yet another sleepless night consumed by whatever demons haunted him, by an endless cascade of names surging down a laptop screen.

"Remy…" she traced the length of his collarbone in the darkness, "You need to _sleep_…"

"_Non_," he answered softly, "I need a distraction. I need you. Distract me, _chere_. Please."

She frowned. "You make me sound like some light entertainment when you're bored…"

"_Non_," he murmured, tugging her curls lightly, nudging her face impatiently towards his, "you're de most beautiful goddamn t'ing in de world, and if there's anythin' that can chase demons away, it's you…"

His mouth captured hers in a warm and liquid kiss, his body speaking to her in a way words could not. His thoughts, his fears, his loves, written in a language as enigmatic and timeless as the stars, one that she could taste but not read. Whatever his secrets, he wanted her to know, even as he tried to hide them from her. He couldn't help it. He couldn't help being drawn to her, couldn't help wanting her when the only thing he wanted was _not_ to want, ever again. And she loved him for it.

She loved him more than anything else she'd ever known.

And _she_ couldn't help it, couldn't help whispering, "_Ah love you…_"

But his lips caught hers again, silencing her before she could say it again and again and again…

And everything was good, everything was perfect, everything was it as should be – her with this man she couldn't trust but did, with this man who couldn't love but who she _believed_ did, even if he didn't. Even if it was all just a game to him, all just lies, she believed he loved her. She believed it because they were the words she'd taken from him when he had meant them most, the words she replayed in her mind and cherished above all other things.

She loved him and he loved her – and _everything_ was as it should be.

-oOo-

_She's there. In the darkness._

_ She's never minded the darkness before. She can see in it, as perfectly as she can in the daytime. But now it's a curse. It's a curse and she closes her eyes, squeezes them shut tight. She doesn't want to see. For the first time in her life, she's afraid of the dark._

_ Her hands are angry and raw. She can't remember the last time she's felt such agony. It's so hot her brain is on fire, receptors fried, it can't handle the pain anymore, it's just one big haze of fucking pain and she thinks she'd rather die. She swears there's no more skin on her hands. If she looks down, all she'll see is blood and bone. There's no way her hands can be there anymore. Not if there's this much pain, this much hurt. It's right behind her eyes, stinging stars that cloud her vision. And she wants to die, she wants only for this pain to end and she can't see any other way out but death…_

_ Then he's there. In the darkness, beside her. She hears him, his footsteps, his breathing. The man who scares the shit out of her and yet would be her saviour._

_ "Make it stop, please make it stop, kill me, kill me now, please…" she moans, and there's a cold hand on her forehead, no tenderness, no mopping away of the blood and the sweat, just all clinical measurement, and she moans again because every touch is agony and she can't bear it much longer…_

_ "What will you give me, to make it stop?" says the voice above her, cultured and cold and sonorous._

_ "Anyt'ing, I give anyt'ing…" she says._

_ And the voice chuckles._

_ "Anything?"_

_ And, "anyt'ing," she says again, and she opens her eyes then, sees that cold, fiery blaze looking down at her without compassion, without feeling, two burning spotlights in the darkness boring down into her soul and the fire in her hands is flaming again, and it's coming and she can feel it taking over and she can't control it, and she clenches at the pain and she screams…_

And she awoke screaming, sitting bolt upright bathed in a cold sweat, _real_ pain searing through her hands, blood and nerves boiling with a blistering agony up her arms and jangling into her brain…

And the next moment the light was on, and she looked down at her hands, and her dream had come true – what she saw was blood and bone – claws protruding from the knuckles of each hand, _Logan's claws_, not metal, not adamantium, just her bone and _no healing factor_.

"_Shit,_" she heard Remy seethe beside her, and he threw back the covers, ran into the bathroom while she screamed incoherently at the _things_, the horrible alien _things_ sticking out of her hands…

"_Make them go make them go make them go please make them_ _GO_…!" she cried as Remy came running back into the room with towels, stupid _towels_, and what the fuck were _they_ going to do…?

He sat on the bed beside her, wrapped them round her bloody hands and shouted at her, "Retract them!" But she couldn't, her brain was a red mist of pain and she was shaking so hard she couldn't even see straight…

"Ah can't!" she wailed.

"Yes you can!" he levelled back at her, his voice trembling only slightly through the mask of calm he'd imposed on it. "What did Raven tell you to do? Tell me!"

What was it? How was she supposed to see through the pain?

"_Con-con-con-concentrate…_"

"_Oui_. Concentrate. Do it."

"F-focus."

"Focus. Yes. Focus on it. Not de pain. On de claws. Dey not yours, _chere_. Dey Logan's. Give dem back to him."

Yes. Yes, give them back. Unfold. Unwind. Go back. Focus. Undo.

"Breathe," she heard him remind her, and she did.

She breathed.

_"You just need to _want_ it gone, Rogue. You've never really _wanted_ it enough."_

_ Raven stood at the window facing her, arms crossed, expression stern._

_ "Yah think Ah _want_ t' be like this?" she asked acidly._

_ "No. Not consciously anyhow. But I think your powers are an excuse, Rogue. To carry on hurting. To carry on pushing out the world. To keep it out. And unless you _want_ to touch, unless you _want_ those voices in your head to stop tormenting you, you won't get either. You'll stay just the way you are. Lonely and cold and untouched."_

And the claws retracted.

She opened her eyes and stared down at them, at the blood soaked towels. She was trembling, trembling so hard she thought she would shatter. Remy was holding her wrapped up hands in his, staring at her with blazing eyes.

"What de _fuck_ was _dat_?" he asked her in an incredulous tone. It was several moments before she could find her voice.

"Ah – Ah was havin' a nightmare. Ah think… Ah think this was just a defence mechanism…"

It was a lie. The truth was, she wasn't entirely sure _what_ had happened. It'd never happened before, not even during the worst episodes she'd encountered with the psyches in her head. Memories that weren't hers had sifted to the surface now and then… but she'd never manifested full-on _powers _before. Not like _this._

His expression was doubtful. Like he didn't quite believe it either.

"Shit. Are you sure?"

She nodded half-heartedly.

"It used to happen sometimes, when Ah first joined up with the Brotherhood again."

Another lie. She wanted desperately for him to believe.

"It was rare, usually happened when I was under stress." The more lies she told, the easier it became… "It hasn't happened like this in _years_…"

"Hmph." His face relaxed somewhat. He'd bought it. Just about. "Musta been some fuckin' nightmare for you to start poppin' Logan's fuckin' claws of all t'ings."

She said nothing. How could she tell him that she'd never had a nightmare so bad before? That the nightmare had been _his_?

"You okay?" he asked her, this time with real concern. She nodded, gulping down the thick stickiness in her throat. He looked down at her hands in his, said, "Let's get dis cleaned up."

He leaned over, reached for the drawers in the nightstand and pulled out the first aid kit. She didn't watch as he removed the towels, cleaned and bandaged her hands. The pain dwindled from a searing blaze jangling up through her arms to a stinging throb to a dull ache. When he'd finished dressing her wounds, he handed her some painkillers and a half empty bottle of mineral water.

"Take it," he ordered.

She did.

"Thanks."

His smile was slight; he took her face between his palms with a gentle touch.

"Sure you're okay?"

"Yeah."

Her voice was weak, but she'd stopped shuddering and her heartbeat had slowed to a regular pace. And there was relief on his face.

"Damn, you scared de shit outta me, Rogue."

"Think Ah scared myself more…"

"Heh. Just don't pull anyt'ing like dat again, _chere_. Don't t'ink my heart could take it."

She managed a smile, and somehow that made it all okay.

But when she lay down to sleep again, when she closed her eyes once more… It took an effort, an effort to dispel the image of those cold, red eyes gazing down into hers, the way they once had into his.

-oOo-

"How you doin'?"

Rogue looked up at him from her place on the windowsill.

Remy LeBeau with an artfully unshaved jaw and wearing only tracksuit bottoms. He was looking down at her bandaged hands.

"Ah'm good," she said, but she didn't feel good, not really. She hoped it didn't show.

"Leave dem a coupla days, we change dem den."

He rubbed his jawline. His accent was always thicker in the mornings, just after he woke up. He could've sold sand to Arabs with that voice. It seemed a world away from the voice he used in his nightmares. Hoarse and broken and thick with pain.

With fear. Of Essex.

And yet he'd gone back to him, worked for him again doing something she knew he'd hated.

She wondered why.

She didn't dare ask.

He moved away, grabbed a sweater from a bag and pulled it over his head. It clung to him in all the right places, fell loose in others.

"Whaddya want for breakfast?" he asked her as she watched him. He was beautiful. She knew he knew he was attractive and handsome and sexy as hell. She didn't think he knew he was beautiful. He was at his most beautiful when he was like this. All _just woken up_ and _thinking about what to wear_ and _whaddaya want for breakfast?_

She smiled despite herself.

"Beignets?"

He threw her a look.

"Yeah, like we're gonna get dem round here."

She pouted. She really wanted to be spoiled today. She thought she deserved it. It was beignets or nothing.

"Don't you go makin' a _bahbin_ at me, _chere_," he scolded her playfully. "We ain't _en Ville_ right now, we're stuck in de middle of nowhere, where de hell a man gonna find some beignets for his _beb_?"

Oh yeah, and then there was his _I'm Cajun and proud of it_ moments. Although she thought that he laid it on a bit thick sometimes. Just for her benefit. She couldn't help but laugh.

"Ah'm fine with anythin' you are, sugah."

"Hm." He looked at her with eyes twinkling. "You sure that's the way you want to put it to me, hon?"

"Uh huh."

If her hands weren't bandaged to the size of bowling balls, she figured she would've grabbed him right now and tackled him right back into bed. So much for that.

The smile he sent her told her he was thinking the same.

"I'll be right back," he told her, stuffing his wallet in the back of his pants and leaving before their banter could get anymore hopelessly suggestive and frustrating.

As soon as he was out she turned back to the window, a frown fighting the smile on her face. She knew he'd been trying to take her mind off things, trying to keep her spirits up, and she was grateful to him for that. But something wasn't right. She'd felt it coming on for days, weeks now, but she'd been writing it off as stress or her period or any number of things. As time had worn on, the excuses had been wearing thin.

First it had been his dreams of Belle and Julien. Then it had been manifesting Colossus' powers with those meatheads back in that town whose name she couldn't remember. And now last night. Logan's claws. Sticking out of her hands and the pain he must have felt every time he'd popped them.

Her hands tingled, reminding her of the night before.

There had been other little things. Things like blacking out and finding herself stuck in someone else's memories for a minute or two. Then of course there had been the nightmares. Remy's nightmares.

She looked down at her hands.

He'd done a good job. The bandages were neat and clean. Expertly done, like he'd done it a million times before. And then she thought about _his_ hands. Their roughness on her skin. A pleasant roughness. The kind that sent shivers up and down her spine when he ran them over her stomach and her breasts and her thighs and—

_Yeah, Rogue. We get the picture._

The point was, his hands were scarred. From his power, no doubt. At some point, he'd burned them so bad it'd left its mark. The nightmares, they told her more of the story, the agony his powers had once inflicted on him.

_You know better than most, Rogue, that there are some of us whose powers are a curse rather than a blessing_.

"You were right, Irenie," she whispered to herself, to her blurry reflection in the window. "And Ah think Remy knows that too…"

And yet… it was Logan's power she'd manifested. Not Remy's.

"What the _hell_ is goin' on up there?" she spoke a little louder into the silence. "Why the hell is this happenin' to me?"

And she didn't like the answer.

The idea that she might be _losing control_.

She thought of Raven, Mystique, her foster mother, her mentor, her jailer. The disapproving look on her face.

_You've got sloppy, Rogue. You're letting them take over again. I knew this would happen. You walk away from your family, your home with the Brotherhood to be with _that thief_, and now, while you're all loved up with _him_, your training's suffering. Don't say I didn't warn you, Rogue. Don't say I didn't tell you so._

She could hear her now, in her head, clear as day.

It was good thing she'd never absorbed her mother, or her psyche would be railing at her right now.

Nevertheless, had Raven said all these things, she would've had a point. She _was_ rusty. Complacent. The voices never bothered her anymore. She hadn't focused on them for ages now. Keeping the psyches in order… well, it had been the last thing on her mind lately. Maybe some of them had broken free. Maybe Colossus and Wolverine were roaming around up there getting all antsy.

She got up from the windowsill, double-checked to make sure Remy really had gone. Then she pulled the curtains, lay down on the bed, rearranged the pillows, made herself comfortable. She breathed deep and slow, the way Raven had taught her.

Then she closed her eyes and dove straight into the fast moving rivers of her mind.

-oOo-

What once had been darkness and chaos was now clinical clean whiteness.

In the quiet hours of her long convalescence from the injuries she had sustained in the Hound Pens, this is what she had done.

Remade the fortress of her mind, gathered together all the hungry revenants that tormented her, the psyches she had claimed. She did it for Xavier, she did it for everyone she had loved and lost, but most of all, she did it for herself, because she wanted her freedom, she wanted to sleep at night without hearing those screams in her head. Now when she came here, it was quiet. The chaos had given way to peace, the disorder to order.

She stood at the head of a long, white corridor, a corridor that seemed to stretch on into infinity, one that was so white it seemed to shine with its own inner glow. She stepped forward, began to walk, her footsteps echoing in the quiet, the sharp _clack, clack, clacking_ of her heels exuding a palpable dissonance. So she turned the sound off. It was _her_ mind after all. She could do what she wanted with it. It had just taken her a hell of a long time to figure that out.

On either side of her, each wall was lined with doors, also white, windowless, featureless. Each was identical to the next.

Rogue stopped and stared. As far as the eye could see, the corridor continued onwards into the great expanse of her mind. Not a single door appeared to be ajar. She swung round. Again, that corridor – no beginning, no end, no sign of any disruption. On the other side of each door, a psyche silently rested, dreaming whatever dreams came to them. Most of them would dream forever.

_Looks like everythin's in order…_

But there was still a thread of doubt in her. It was almost too quiet, and she didn't like it.

_Perhaps Ah should turn the sound back on…_

She turned around again, showing no surprise at the glass door that had now sprung up before her, right in the middle of the corridor. There was nothing on the other side; just smoke, mist, swirling slowly in an indistinguishable thick greyness. Rogue reached out and pressed a palm against the pane, pushed the door open softly. When she took her hand away, its imprint remained for a long time afterwards.

She stepped over the threshold into a world of running water and crystal and birdsong, of tranquillity and light. Beneath her feet the ground was translucent, like mercury moving through glass. This was the epicentre, her place and hers alone. The place where she came to escape, to retreat from the darkness.

She stopped and looked up. There was no sky; only light, white and silvery as moonlight, soft as starlight. There was no end to it, no horizon – it went on forever. She remembered – for the greater part of her life, this sky had been roiling thunder clouds and lightning. A never-ending storm in her mind. Strange, to think it hadn't been that long ago. She closed her eyes and felt the softest of breezes caress her cheek.

All it had taken was _wanting_ all the death and the chaos to disappear. For her to let the guilt go, and for the healing to begin. What had been left was a space she had been free to recreate as she saw fit.

She walked again, and as she did her world came into view – the lake and the cedar tree, beyond which stood the mansion. This was her sanctuary, the place she came to huddle in on herself and seek solace. The lake shimmered like ice in the milky light; the cedar stood tall and solid, barely moved by the wind.

And there, under the boughs where she had sought shelter so many times before, she saw it. A familiar figure standing beneath the vast canopy, leaning against its mighty frame, looking out onto the lake as she so often did herself.

_No… No, it can't be…_

Her pace quickened involuntarily; as she approached, the figure turned towards her, fanning a pack of cards between its fingers in a gesture so familiar that her heart jumped into her mouth.

She couldn't quite believe it was him until she stood right there just a few feet from him.

"Remy," she breathed, a giddy confusion taking her, and in a moment the cards in his hand had disappeared into his pocket and he smiled. Smiled that warm, honeyed smile, as if everything was exactly as it should be.

But it wasn't. He shouldn't have been here.

"Rogue," he said; and there was something in his voice, low and soft and almost yearning, that she didn't recognise.

He stood there, hands in pockets, that welcoming smile still on his face; waiting, as he always did, for her to make her move.

And she found that for those few short moments, through all her confusion, there were no words she could find to say, until she looked into his eyes and realised that it _was_ him. The ghost of a man she had never meant to absorb, to steal.

"Remy… What are yah _doin'_ here?"

_You're not supposed to be here…_

His expression was calm, clear.

"Been waitin' for you, _chere_." And his voice was so substantial, so _real…_ "Figured you'd show up some time soon…"

She stared at him. She didn't understand.

"How… how did you _get _here?" she tried again. And he frowned. Just as the real Gambit would've frowned at her when something didn't fit.

"My door was open," he explained at last. "So I walked through it. Thought you _wanted_ me to come out." He paused, continued in a quieter tone, "De door to _dis_ place was open too. Right dere in dat long, white corridor, like it wanted me to walk through. Like it was _expectin'_ me. So in I went. To here." He looked up, at the endless sky, at the lake, at the mansion that stood so solid and comforting behind them. "Pretty place you have here, _chere_," he murmured with _real_ feeling in his voice. "So _you_. I remember comin' here wit' you. In de moonlight. You wore dat white dress, and de butterfly necklace I gave you…" He looked back at her, and the yearning she had heard in his voice was now in his eyes. "You kept it. All dese years. It _did_ mean somet'ing to you…"

And he reached out, placed his hand upon her chest, where the butterfly pendant lay hidden beneath her shirt. She took in a trembling breath. Where she should have felt the warmth and pressure of his hand on her body, she felt nothing. Barely a whisper of contact. There was a veil between them. In her mind she was solid; but he was a ghost, a phantom. The psyche of Gambit, a mere shade, a facsimile. He wasn't _real_.

But he was real enough. Real enough to _want_ to touch her. Real enough to frown in sudden frustration when he realised he could not.

He removed his hand, slipped it back into his pocket and grinned wryly at her.

"Looks like de tables have turned, _chere_. Now I'm de one who can't touch _you_."

Why was he being like this? So… nice? She could hardly bear it. Hardly bear the sudden impulsion to take him in her arms and kiss him and kiss him and tell him she loved him when he was in _this_ place of all places, in the place which should have been locked from everyone except herself.

"You're not supposed to _be_ here, Remy," she managed to tell him on a breath; and there it was again, that wounded frown…

"But my door was open, _chere_," he began, unhappy confusion on his face. "You woke me up… You _wanted_ to see me, Rogue… Dis your place here, I know it. You wouldn't just let anyone in here, would you?"

She shook her head; no, she wouldn't – never – and that was the problem – whatever had happened, whatever _was_ happening – doors opening where they shouldn't, the psyches in her head waking… it was worse than she'd thought…

He seemed to sense her own confusion. He paused, started again: "I thought you trusted me enough to show me dis place… I waited for you to come. Like you did dat night, in de white dress, when we were wit' de X-Men and everyt'ing was _good _b'tween us…"

He was breaking her heart, recounting all these memories she was _sure_ he'd forgotten…

"Ah'm sorry, Remy," she half-whispered. "Ah hate to say it… It wasn't me. Ah never woke you up, never opened your door. You're supposed to be asleep right now. Like the others."

He was silent a long moment, taking in her words. He took his hands out of his pockets slowly. This time his frown was dark.

"_Merde_," he swore under his breath. "Does dis mean…"

"Ah don't know what it means yet," she interrupted quickly.

Lightning split the atmosphere above them, making them start; the next moment a sudden rainfall broke, a sheet of water falling in a heavy torrent from an invisible cloud and down into the lake beside them. The lawn, the cedar tree, the mansion remained untouched. Only the lake bore the brunt of the storm she had created. She realised it was her mood. Her _emotions_ were changing the world about her. She tried to swallow them down, tried to stop the squall that had so suddenly developed, found herself unable to do so.

"How… how long have you _been _here?" she asked him earnestly.

"How long?" His brow furrowed as he thought about it. "I ain't sure, _chere_. Days could pass here and you wouldn't know it. Dere _is_ no time here…"

No, she thought, there isn't. Of course. She nodded absently. The rain was still sheeting down, breaking the perfect tranquillity of the lake.

"You gonna stop dat?" he asked her. She ignored him.

"Are there any others out?"

And she felt relief when he shook his head.

"Ain't seen no one else, _chere_… All de doors were closed anyways…"

The rain lessened a little. Before long it had petered out completely. All was silent again, their senses filled only with one another and the fresh tang of moisture on the air.

"I'm sorry," he apologised softly. "Didn't mean t' cause you trouble…"

"No," she stopped him gently. "It… it wasn't _you_. That's why this is so strange…"

That frown again…

"Who?"

"It's…" She checked herself quickly, said: "It doesn't matter."

She turned, eyes scanning her sanctuary for signs of anything amiss. There wasn't even an inkling of the chaos that had reigned here before. The only thing out of place was _him_.

She glanced back at him, standing there patiently, eyes watchful.

"Guess I should be leavin' now, neh?" he remarked wryly, reading her look.

"Ah'm sorry," she half-whispered.

"For what?"

"For makin' you go back there," she explained; but a look crossed his face, and he said with a faint smile; "It ain't a bad place, _chere_. Though it would be better if _you_ were there to keep me company…"

They walked away from the lake, the tree and the mansion, slow, uncertain. It was strange, to stand beside a phantom in her mind, the phantom of a man she knew and loved, a tangible thing mentally, but not physically. And yet he _seemed_ real in that sense. Physically. She felt as if she could reach out and touch him, place her palm in his. But this wasn't Remy, not the one she knew. _This_ Remy was the one she had absorbed in the snow at the Hound pens, at a moment when everything had been at stake. Turmoil, agony had filled that short space of time for her, when she had seen the face of Death. And he… he had seen it too. At her hands.

But not _this_ Remy. _This_ was the Remy she had absorbed at the single moment of his life where she had meant everything to him. And now she realised it. That the wistfulness, the yearning, the gentle words… the need to reach out for her, to grasp her and hold her close with all the tenderness in him… These were the things he had been thinking, feeling, the moment she had absorbed him.

She swallowed the sudden surge of emotion in her.

It was the realisation that even back then, all those months ago, in the darkest of times… he had cared for her.

There was the door, the swirling, misted glass. She pushed it open onto that long and endless corridor, and there, just as he'd said, was the room she had made for him. A carbon copy of all the other doors about them, but this one… it was ajar. Open, where it should have been closed and locked.

She couldn't move. Couldn't bring herself to walk into the cage she had made for him; but he had no such compunction, brushing past her and opening the door a little wider. He looked back at her, saw the apprehension on her face, smiled.

"It's okay, _chere_. It ain't a bad place you made for me. I promise."

His expression was so gentle, so encouraging, that she felt reassured. She stepped forward and followed him into the room.

It was the safe house.

She halted in the doorway, taken aback, her heart lurching at the familiar sight. She had recreated it perfectly for him. Even the scent, even the ambiance. Months had passed, but not here. Everything here was as she last remembered it.

He stopped, looked over his shoulder, said in a softer voice: "I told you it'd be okay."

She gathered herself, nodded. Stepping into the room, she closed the door shut gently behind her.

"You see," he began, walking up to the mattress and staring down at it, "it ain't so bad."

There was that wistfulness in him again – one she'd never seen before, not even on the face he wore outside in the 'real' world. It struck something deep inside her. There was real emotion in him, real feelings for her, and she'd banished him to these four walls.

"If Ah'd known you were gonna wake up…" she trailed off uncertainly.

"No apologies, _chere_." He looked up at her. "Only wish dere was somet'ing I could do to help you…"

She made no reply to that. She was still searching for something, even here in this little safe haven. She walked to the other side of the mattress, running her hands over the furniture as she passed. So solid. So real. She reached the nightstand and stopped. When she raised her hand, there was dust on her fingers.

"Ah swore Ah'd never absorb you," she told him quietly, feeling she owed it to him. "You were the one person…" She looked up at him, wanting his hate, his disapproval, finding nothing but trust. "Ah'm sorry. Ah broke that promise."

His smile was wry.

"I know. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here, neh?" His smile was warm in the pit of her stomach. "Guess you know everyt'ing about me now, _chere_."

There were his cards again, fanning between his fingers with dextrous nonchalance, a disguise for the fact that he _did_ care. She saw right through it.

"No. Ah've never wanted to…"

He looked up at her over his cards.

"But you _could_ look, if'n you wanted. Right?"

She couldn't deny it.

"Yeah…"

He was still doing it, still fanning those goddamn cards in his hand, and he was _so_ real, so _visceral_ that she could have believed that this was just another one of their barbed and pointed exchanges.

"It's okay, Rogue," he said at last, closing the pack again with a sharp _shuck_ and sliding it back into his coat pocket. "You did what you had t' do. You bein' here tells me one good t'ing at least – dat you made it outta dat hell hole at de Hound Pens alive."

"How much do you remember?" she asked him curiously.

Again, that wry smile…

"I remember lyin' wit' you in de snow. Den _bam_, a whole lotta stars. Was dat you, Rogue? Did you crack me on de head wit' somet'ing before you absorbed me?"

The colour on her face said it all.

"Why, _chere_? What'd I do t' make you so mad?"

"Not mad," she murmured. "Just…confused. What you said—"

"What I said," he repeated, laughing mirthlessly. "Knew dere was a reason I promised myself never to say dose three little words anymore."

His expression was bitter; she couldn't bear it.

"Remy—"

"You know what de crazy t'ing is, Rogue?" he cut in right over her, holding her gaze with clear eyes. "I meant it when I said it. Hell," and the wry smile was back, "I still mean it."

"Remy…"

She couldn't say whatever she had planned. Her heart ached. Ached with the knowledge that _this wasn't him_… But he had walked round the mattress to stand in front of her… And he reached out, touched a white lock of her hair in a gesture that was weightless, ghostly, said: "If I was de real me, out dere in de real world wit' you… I'd tell you every day. _Dieu_, I hope he does. I hope he tells you _I love you_. He's a fool if he doesn't." His hand brushed her cheek; his touch was like feather tips on her flesh, fleeting, ephemeral, and she closed her eyes, falling into his words, into a caress she could barely feel…

"You have no idea how much I've done for you," he whispered. "How much I've done to keep you close, to keep you _livin'_…"

She opened her eyes slowly.

"Ah know…"

His palm, cupping her cheek, leaving no warmth…

"I did it b'cause I love you, Rogue. I've tried to let you go and I can't. I spent so many nights tryin' to forget you when all I wanted was to have you back there beside me…"

"Ah love you too…" she whispered back, and though she could not feel his touch, there was still that smile, uncurling the most wonderful thread of warmth in her…

"I know," he murmured. "I've always known."

He leaned forward, rested his forehead against hers, no weight, no pressure, _no touch_, but they stayed there, just like that, for the longest moment, finding exactly what they wanted in one another in a place where they could never be.

He broke it first, stepping away from their embrace with a light-headed laugh.

"_Merde_. Dis is some kinda hell you've put me in, Rogue, in a place where I can kiss you and touch you and not feel a damn t'ing."

She smiled sadly.

"Yeah. Looks like we're back to square one, sugah. Back to the ol' _can't touch, won't touch_ thing…"

"Yeah…"

They shared another look. So many questions to ask, so much to share… All impossible in this place.

"Ah should go," she said at last.

"Yeah. I'll just go back t' sleep…" He glanced down at the mattress with an expression that said he would've liked her to join him, for her to lie beside him, for them to just _sleep_ together…

And suddenly she made up her mind.

"No. Don't."

He looked up at sharply and she continued: "Ah need you, Remy. Ah need your help. Stay awake, keep a watch on the others for me."

His mouth was flat.

"Are you sure?"

She nodded, deciding it would be best to be honest with him here, even if she couldn't be on the outside.

"Ah've been manifestin' powers randomly. Sometimes it's helpful, sometimes not… But Ah never consciously think about it. It just _happens_. And sometimes…" She paused, taking in a deep breath. "_Sometimes_ Ah relive mem'ries. They just take over, and when they're done Ah'm right back where they were before they started, like Ah blacked out or somethin'. Ah… Ah think Ah'm losin' control…"

His mouth grew flatter.

"Have you talked to _him_ about dis?"

She knew instinctively who he meant.

"No. You – _Remy_ – he doesn't know. Ah'm… Ah'm afraid to tell him… Sometimes Ah have dreams... _Your_ dreams… _His_ dreams… Of Essex…"

His expression was an all-out frown now.

"So there _are_ t'ings you know 'bout me, _chere_…"

She coloured.

"Not much. Just… _things_…_impressions…_"

His frown deepened further.

"And he doesn't know, does he. You've never told him. Dat you absorbed him dat day at de Pens."

Her heart was in her mouth again. She shook her head silently, feeling that she had somehow betrayed him. "He would hate me if Ah told him…" she explained at last in a hoarse voice.

"No, Rogue. He could never hate. Not you." She couldn't quite believe it, even if he was the one person who should know above all others. "You'll have to tell him," he continued. "Sooner or later."

"Ah know," she returned quietly.

He looked back down at the mattress, then at her.

"All right. I help you. If I see anyt'ing, _anyone_, I call."

She let out a pent up breath of relief.

"Thank you."

"No t'anks, _chere_," he insisted. "For you, I do anyt'ing. Jus' say de word."

And she wanted to stay here, she wanted to ask him about his life, about why he was the way he was, about all the secrets he kept hidden deep inside… And she knew she couldn't. That he _wouldn't _tell her. Not yet.

"Just promise me one t'ing, Rogue," he said, as she turned to leave.

"What?"

"Just promise me you'll tell him. Tell him what you know. He needs you, _chere_. More den you think."

-oOo-


	8. Shadow of a Doubt

**: TWIST OF FATE :**

**_PART ONE: _****DRIVE**

**(8) - Shadow of a Doubt -**

It all began in the 1960's.

That was as far back as the records went anyway.

A research test facility in the Alamogordo desert, a world away from the Cold War and the Sexual Revolution and love and peace and the Civil Rights Movement.

_This_ was all about the future.

Babies. Genetics. Eggs and embryos and tanks and test tubes, waiting for their day to come.

Mutants.

All blacker than black ops, more secret than top secret.

The government had known about them even then, they'd wanted and needed them, coveted them as the secret recipe to the super soldier and thus superpower status. The Russians were already ahead of us, just as they were in the Space Race. We'd got wind of their super soldier project, Winter Guard, through the grapevine, layer upon layer of nameless, faceless people who whispered into one another's ears in a chain more dangerous, more high stakes, than your regular game of Chinese whispers. We had to go one better. We had to get there first. We were already halfway there. We had the mutants – we just needed them on tap. With _useful_ powers, not the mundane kind. We needed fingers that shot bullets and minds that could take out electrics with just a thought. Not the ugly mugs with an extra tail or a couple of horns on their head. We needed a war machine, all packed neatly into a single person and ready to go out to battle and win it.

_That's_ what the Black Womb project was all about.

Or so the government had thought.

The records gave the names of the key players.

Amanda Mueller, apparently a brilliant geneticist, the project's director. A shadowy benefactor by the name of Dr. Nathan Milbury. (And here Clarity had snuck in a highlighted comment in bold, red font – KNOWN ALIAS OF NATHANIEL ESSEX). Other names, high level project employees, had stuck out. Kurt Marko, Alan Ryking, Carl Denti, Fred Duncan. And Irene Adler.

Irene Adler. The mutant known as Destiny, the one who could read the future. Rogue's foster mother.

What had _she_ got to do with the Black Womb project? And why was she working independently of her long-time lover, Mystique?

Remy grimaced as he chewed on the pen in his hand.

No big mystery there. Mystique was a shapeshifter. She could be whoever the hell she wanted. She could've been anyone on that project and he'd never know. Whether she had been or not was largely irrelevant. Mystique and Destiny stood together. Avatars for one another.

He looked down at the sheet of notepaper on the desk in front of him.

The Black Womb project right at the heart of it all, a circle in the middle of the page. Inside it, Mystique-Destiny and Sinister. Working together? And if so, for what? How had their goals diverged over the years, moved them towards mutual distrust and enmity?

And then there was himself. Branching out from Sinister. Big question mark there he wasn't sure he wanted to answer. That he wasn't on those discs Clarity had sent didn't mean a hell of a lot. There was something there, and he knew it.

And finally Rogue, branching out from Mystique-Destiny. Rogue, the girl Raven and Irene had gone to great lengths to bring up, to mould for their own shadowy purposes. For what reason? Remy had no doubts that Rogue was intrinsic to whatever they thought they were aiming to achieve in all this. But she was not merely a pawn to them. Those last few weeks in New York, he had learned to realise that both of them _loved_ Rogue deeply, almost fanatically. In every way but in blood, in genetics, she _was_ their daughter.

_It hadn't taken much effort._

_ Picking locks was second nature to him. Even ones on books, or diaries._

_ He flipped open the first page of the first book of _Libris Veritatus_, the Books of Destiny_. _And what he saw was the Phoenix. Jean Grey. Maybe. Not that it mattered. Jean Grey was dead._

_ He remembered Rogue had told him that the Phoenix had been at the _end_ of everything. Not the beginning. But hey. Maybe the beginning was the end and the end was the beginning. Maybe that was the whole point._

_ The rest of the first book was stuff he didn't get. People he didn't recognise, obscure references to events long past. He closed that book, opened the second. Near the very first page, he saw an image that took his breath away. Sinister. Essex. A man, not a monster. A respected doctor, a husband. Then later, a father._

_ He was older than Remy had thought. Much older. A contemporary of Raven and Irene, in fact; though they'd never met in their youth. That had come later, much later._

_ He skipped the next few books, and when he opened the eighth he saw faces he recognised. Charles Xavier, Erik Lensherr, Jean Grey and Scott Summers, and there was Senator Kelly, being killed by Irene herself years before the event had actually taken place. Trask and the Sentinels, Ahab and the Hounds, and shadows and darkness and death. He went backwards. Picked up the book before this one._

_ Rogue, Rogue, Rogue, Rogue, Rogue._

_ Young Rogue, wild and untamed and angry and scared._

_ And on another page, Essex again, this time a monster, and _himself_…_

_ He needed to go back. He needed to see how this had all played out, how this had all come to be. He closed that book, went for the next down on the shelf and…_

_ "That's quite far enough," Irene said behind him._

_ He snatched back his hand and turned with a wry grin that she couldn't see._

_ "You quiet when you want to be," he remarked dryly. He figured all that tap, tap, tapping with her cane was just a dupe. Something to lull you into a false sense of security. To make you think you knew when she was around when it was convenient to her that you think so._

_ "Yes," she agreed simply. She moved to stand beside him at the book shelf, ran her fingers over the line of old tomes, set them neatly in order again, pushed them back into place just so._

_ "I thought you'd know better than to leave traces of yourself here," she noted lightly._

_ "Non. I just knew better than to think you wouldn't already know I was gonna come here pryin'. Not much I can hide from someone who already knows de future, neh?"_

_ The smile she bestowed him with was begrudging._

_ "I know you want to see more," she told him. "But I'm afraid I can't allow that to happen. There are just some things that should always remain hidden."_

_ "Except from you. Hardly seems fair."_

_ Her smile faded._

_ "No. It isn't."_

_ She crossed the room with the confidence of habit and sat down behind the green baize desk that had the last volume of her Diaries closed and locked upon it. He stared at it._

_ "Your path is still clouded," she stated matter-of-factly. He shrugged._

_ "Dat's just fine wit' me."_

_ "So is Rogue's."_

_ He wanted to shrug again. He couldn't._

_ "Fate has tangled the two of you together," Irene continued blithely, "but in stranger ways than I've ever seen. Sometimes, I think… that it isn't entirely sure what it means to achieve in bringing the two of you together…"_

_ "We make our own paths," he countered darkly, but that smile touched her lips again._

_ "Do you? How much of your path has been made by Essex? How much of Rogue's has been made by _me_?"_

Remy rubbed his face with both palms, trying to ease the tension behind his eyes. The laptop screen flickered before him, waiting. He'd hit an impasse. Page after redacted page stood out before him. Nothing he could find, but the odd preposition and conjunctive here and there.

He put the computer on sleep, folded up the piece of notepaper and slipped it into one of the secret inner pockets of the trench coat that was draped over the chair he was sitting on. His head ached. Not for the first time he wondered, _what am I doing here?_ Was he simply helping along the hand of Fate? Fulfilling whatever sick prophecies had been written in Irene's books? Was he making things worse instead of better? Playing both himself and Rogue into the hands of something, somewhere, neither of them wanted to _be_?

And Rogue… Did he even really want her? Was it merely a force outside of his own control that had brought them together in order to achieve its own ends?

He found himself longing for it. His old life. Crazy heists and wild parties. Drugs and smokes and booze. Women and sex. No one to answer to but himself. Money, money, money. Laughter and sublime highs and sweet sensation. Late nights out and early mornings in. The rush of his power kicking in and the thrill of his fist connecting with raw tissue, the sweat and the blood and the tears of the fight. He wanted it back. _That_ was him. Not _this_. Not stuck in a motel room with the shape of the same woman still moulded into the sheets of the bed. Not this… _stillness_.

He stood.

Rogue was in the shower; he could hear the water hitting her skin.

He pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger.

He'd gone too far this evening, done too much. Drowned himself in this past, trying to see the fit, trying to figure out where he came into all of it. What did the past matter? It was all about the future, about figuring out the person you _wanted_ to be and getting there under your own terms.

Wasn't it?

He grabbed his coat, slung it over his shoulders, jerked his arms through the sleeves. He walked to the door and opened it, shut it behind him. He was going somewhere, he was going into his future, and he was going there under his own terms, come hell or high heaven.

-oOo-

The bar top bore the beer stains of a million other patrons who'd sat here before him. Remy swirled the contents of his glass absently, studied the churning depths with less interest than it seemed. His mind was on other things. His mind was on everything and nothing; the drink a distraction from himself, his present location a diversion from the responsibilities he faced back between the four walls of his motel room.

Rogue had been singing in the shower when he'd left.

He could've stayed. He could even have joined her.

But the thought of spending another moment stuck in that room had been too much for him.

He'd rather be here, he decided. In another nameless bar with a crowd of nameless people whose faces he'd never recall. In a haze that he wouldn't remember come the morning.

The girl at the other end of the bar smiled at him.

Blue eyes and soft blonde hair with the cutest kink in it.

He smiled back because it was what he did. Smile at girls and invite them over if they wanted, if they dared.

And she was there beside him in the space of seconds.

"You new in town?" she asked in a pretty voice with no trace of an accent.

"Buy you a drink?" he said; and he bought her a drink and himself another.

He couldn't remember what they talked about next.

He remembered the two of them a little later, in the bedroom of her dingy apartment, a room he would only recall for the scent of her designer perfume, trading hungry kisses and greedy touches in the darkness, coat on the floor, her hands under his shirt, fingers searing like fire, and no thoughts, no feelings, no attachment, nothing but _sensation_. The thing he needed to take this doubt away. To take himself out of this situation where he was a man and not a boy, a lover and not a player, an honest man and not a thief.

All these ties, all these strings, and he wanted them cut. He wanted everything to be the way it had been before, when… When he hadn't met _her_.

When had he met her?

Years ago.

He'd barely been a man back then. And even then he'd lived his life as he'd pleased, even whilst feeling her pull, feeling Storm's pull, and Xavier's pull, and thinking _I'm tired of the way I'm livin' now. I want to be like them_.

And here he was now. Wanting to go back to a life of petty crime and dissolution. Because somehow, that was the real him, that was the way he was _supposed_ to be. He was supposed to deceive and betray. He was supposed to look out only for himself and screw anybody else who got in his way. What did he care?

He'd never asked her to _be_ with him. He'd never told her that this was _serious_, that it was anything more than them sharing the same road and the same bed.

So why did his chest ache when he thought of her soft, magnolias voice singing in the shower?

He pushed away from the girl. Broke away from those hot kisses, that willing body. He stepped back from another betrayal, mumbled an awkward "'M sorry…", and he walked away. Retreated back into the darkness, just like he always did, but this time he stumbled, his legs unsteady. His head was swimming, his eyes were on fire. The world seemed to cave in on him, and he staggered through it, aimless and ashamed, lost and alone, utterly alone.

When he came out on the other side, he found himself sitting by a pond in a park with a stolen bottle of water in his hand, his throat dry. He chugged down what was left in that bottle and stared at his reflection in the water. The darkness obscured everything but the dim red glow of his eyes, the only mark of his mutation. He sat there and wondered why, if he was so bad, he wanted so much to be _good_. Good and clean and honest.

_You don't know who I am, chere. You don't know what I want, you can't give it to me and you just don't get it…_

And the irony was, he didn't think he really got it either.

The cell phone vibrated in his duster pocket and he hesitated. He had no idea what the time was, but he was pretty sure it was late and that Rogue would be wondering where the hell he was. Well, fuck. It wasn't like he owed her any explanations. He didn't mind telling her so.

He palmed the phone and slipped it out of his pocket.

The caller was unknown.

He took it anyway.

"Who dis?"

"Mr. LeBeau," came a cool, cultured voice over the other end of the line, "I must say you are a very hard man to track down."

Remy froze. No mistaking that voice. No mistaking those words, their cold humour, their dangerous poise. He hadn't heard it in months; but even if it had been years, he would never have forgotten it.

"_Essex_," he hissed, the cloud in his mind very much gone. "How de _hell_ did you find me?"

"Oh," Sinister's voice dripped with thinly veiled sarcasm, "it wasn't _too_ difficult. You are, of course, a man who makes going dark into something of an art form, but where there are trails, I follow, even if they are written in invisible ink. Still, I would expect no less from you, my dear boy."

The laugh that followed was soft and menacing. The hackles on the back of Remy's neck stood up and stayed there.

"How did you get dis number?" he asked again, dreading an answer he already knew he would find…

"Elementary. I simply found a man, a certain Mr. William Knoblach… Although I am certain that is not the name you know him by…"

"Clarity," Remy finished for him in a dead-tone. "What did you do to him?" he demanded.

"Nothing. I merely… _persuaded_ him that helping me would be in his best interests…"

"_Damn you_!" Remy swore viciously, but Sinister merely laughed.

"Come now, LeBeau. You think I, a man of _my_ standing, would stoop to such _thuggery_? I'm not so uncouth as _that_. Besides, your friend is a useful sort of fellow. It would not be in my interests to have him _otherwise indisposed_."

Remy swore again. And again. Sinister seemed only amused.

"You choose your friends well, LeBeau. He took some convincing. Still, you are to be admired. Managing to evade me for so long after what happened at Ahab's Hound Pens… I am most suitably impressed."

"I tried to find you," Remy explained quickly but without earnestness. "But by de time I got to de lab, you'd already vacated, dere was no trace."

"Hm." Sinister's tone was now completely mirthless. "One suspects you didn't look entirely hard enough…"

Remy pursed his lips, saying nothing. Waiting. Waiting to hear what Essex knew, or suspected, or _thought_ he knew. He wasn't disappointed for long.

"Speaking of looking hard enough…" Sinister began again with that thread of scornful mockery. "Your current trajectory intrigues me. Could it be you are looking for _X-Men_ to add to my little collection?"

So _that's_ how much he knew. Damn.

"_Maybe_…"

Sinister laughed lightly.

"Don't take me for a fool, LeBeau. Whichever side of the fence you happen to be playing right now doesn't interest me… But it will do. At some point soon."

"I guess I can expect a call from you den," he pointed out wryly.

"Indeed." The word was pithy, business-like. "But, more than your destination, more than your quarry… It is your choice of travel companion that intrigues me most of all."

If there was one thing Essex could've said that would've made Remy's blood run cold, it was _that_. He opened his mouth and found that nothing would come out.

"That sly witch Mystique and her blind paramour kept her well-hidden," Sinister continued musingly, "If I had known that the Rogue was still alive all these years, my experiments may well have tended towards a different course. _You_, however, have managed to lead me straight to her. Though I suspect that was far from your original intention," he added dryly.

"I don't know what you're talkin' about," Remy scoffed, but Essex was used to his bluffs and was not taken in.

"It seems you were able to keep her existence from me for a long time, LeBeau," he stated with an ominous softness. "No doubt her presence at the Hound Pens was the cause of your failure to secure Rachel Summers for me."

Again, Remy could only remain silent, struggling inwardly with a real fear that was growing steadily inside him. Anything but _this_ he could have stomached.

"You're a fool, LeBeau," Sinister hissed abruptly, "to risk your life and _my_ wrath for a _woman_."

"Yet you're here talkin' to me now," Remy suddenly found his voice again. "Which means I'm probably still of some use to you."

And Essex laughed. Not soft, not dangerous. This time it was harsh and knowing.

"Why, yes. As a matter of fact, LeBeau, there _is_ something you possess that is of interest to me. _More_ than one thing, as it happens. But it is of no consequence now." The laughter in his voice died, dwindled to nothing more than a rapacious echo in Remy's mind. "You will be hearing from me, boy. I will be watching you with interest."

The line went dead.

All that was left was the silence, the darkness, the awful reverberation of Sinister's laugh in his head. He stared at his reflection, wavering pale and ghostly in the water. A numbness washed over him. For how long he sat there afterwards he could not tell.

Presently, he opened the back of the phone, thumbed out the SIM card and threw it into the water.

It was an empty gesture.

Wherever he ran to now, he knew Sinister would be following.

-oOo-

The lights were out in the motel room; Rogue lay in bed asleep.

He brushed away the taste of alcohol and stolen kisses from his mouth, undressed, and slipped in under the covers beside her.

He lay on his back, followed the cracks in the ceiling with his eyes. He couldn't count the nights he'd lain like this, sleepless, waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for it to stay silent. He'd lie there with his gut churning and the darkness looming like an invisible sword. It had always been better to spend nights like those in the company of somebody else.

There was a time he'd thought Rogue dead. When he'd never tasted her body. He tried to remember how it had been. The throw-away carelessness of the days. The aimlessness. The thrill of a fight that could leave him half dead and he wouldn't mind because it would mean he felt _something_. The sweet, soft skin of an unknown woman beneath the palms of his hand. Filling the emptiness of his days and his nights.

He'd never forgotten her, not really. But he'd never pined. Never yearned. Never had regrets. He'd had his memories of her. Mostly of her in the white sundress with the butterfly pendant. Untouched and untouchable. Pure and beautiful as an angel. It was best she'd stayed that way. If she'd ever lived, if he'd ever come to touch her, he would have spoiled her.

And then… And then…

He _had_ come to touch her.

Like a phantom made flesh. Solid and real and just as beautiful as he'd remembered her. Skin, skin, skin. Skin he could taste and smell and touch; a body he could corrupt and ruin, and he had.

How had it been before then, when she had been dead to him? What was the world without her, when he hadn't known her taste? What would it be to go back?

She shifted as though his thoughts had somehow summoned her, rolling over and nestling against him like a bird coming home to rest, her hand laying on his chest with the lightest of touches.

"Thought you were asleep, _chere_," he murmured.

"Ah was, till you came back," she replied.

No more words. He had expected more. For her to question him, to ask him where he'd been and why he'd come back so late. But she didn't. She fell straight back asleep, and he lay there listening to the sound of her breathing block out the echo of Essex's cruel laughter, with the single thought in his mind that _he would not have her_, he would be damned to hell before Essex ever got the chance to lay his hands on her.

-oOo-

_He went back. Just once before they left._

_ Irene had gone out with the other Brotherhood members; there was no danger of being caught this time. She hadn't even bothered to change the lock on her door. Good thing for her, because there wasn't a lock he couldn't pick, and she'd saved herself the money on what would've ended up being a useless commodity._

_ But then, maybe she'd always known that._

_ As it was, the lock gave easily and the door swung open as if under its own volition. He stepped inside and closed it softly behind him. Rogue was upstairs, sleeping. He'd made sure of that before he'd come down._

_ He knew exactly what he was going for this time. The desk. He crossed the creaky floorboards and, just as expected, there was the book. The thirteenth and last volume of the Libris Veritatus. Locked. He settled into the chair and pulled open the nearby desk drawer. Nothing in there but the key. He was almost certain Irene had left it for him to find. But he'd rather not use the lockpick when a key would suffice. And it wasn't like he was going to turn back now._

_ He unlocked the book, feeling it give with a soft click, and threw it open to blank pages near the end. Nothing for him here. He fingered the edges of the thick, textured pages, feeling an indentation between them. A bookmark had been wedged there, and he flipped over to the marked page._

_ And what he saw made his heart skip a beat._

_ It was Rogue – and Sinister._

_ He was plunging a blade into her heart._

_ And suddenly the world went very quiet and still, tunnelling in around him, round and down into a small black pinpoint where everything was cold and dark and…_

_ "Merde."_

_ He flipped quickly through the next pages, wanting, needing to see himself sticking that very same knife into Sinister's back and finding…_

_ Nothing._

_ Blank, blank, blank._

_ The rest of the book was blank._

_ He slammed the book shut in frustration, cursing Irene, cursing Destiny._

_ She was taunting him, goading him with these blank pages, with these _lies_._

_He paced the room for several minutes, swearing under his breath, his thoughts angry and incoherent and wild. He paced until the anger had burnt itself out and dwindled to nothing more than a gnawing sense of doubt. He slowed, he stopped. He wondered. And a cold purpose gripped him._

_ He sat back at the desk, opened up the book. He avoided the bookmarked page. He started at the beginning._

_ The attack on the mansion. The bodies on the floor, him running away leaving a trail of blood behind him. And the Brotherhood, taking her away._

_ Him, stealing mutants. For Sinister._

_ Meeting Rogue at a Sentinel parts factory._

_ Caught in a passionate embrace._

_ Rogue in a red dress, this time with a man he didn't recognise, turning her face away from him even as he pressed himself against her and…_

_ It was too much to see – he skipped forward, and there they were again, him and her and Kincaid, him holding out her gun at the man on the floor and about to pull the trigger…_

_ And him and Sage…_

_ And him and Leech…_

_ And Rogue and Rifkind…_

_ And him and her…_

_ And…_

_ And everything was exactly as it had ended up turning out. Page after page of his life and hers, intersecting again and again and again, right down to the two of them in the snow at the Hound Pens and him with a knife and her with a stone._

_ All of it a faithful historical record of the future now past. Not a single page wrong. He chanced it then. Going past the incident at the Hound Pens, seeing what had come after. Himself, standing in the middle of Sinister's lab, a burnt out wasteland. Chains lying broken on the floor._

_ Free of Sinister…_

_ There was a part of him that wanted to turn the next page. To carry on their story, to see what lay ahead. But he couldn't stomach it. A half of him would've said it was all lies. The other half would've balked at the idea that his life had already been mapped out before him._

_ He went back to the bookmarked page._

_ He faced it._

_ Rogue, under Sinister's knife. The blood pouring from her._

_ And he thought, somewhere deep inside, _this won't happen, this _can't_ happen, it's the future and it can be changed.

_But he wasn't so sure anymore. He wasn't so sure just how much could be changed, how much leeway he had when he'd been so certain he was following his own path and every page he'd seen here had disproved it. How far could they out-run Essex, for how long?_

_ There was creaking above his head – the sound of Rogue getting out of bed._

_ He shut the book quietly, locked it, put away the key._

_ He had a plan._

_ He had a plan and he wasn't sure what the point of it was anymore, but he was going to go through with it anyway._

_ He was going to get her somewhere safe. With the X-Men, or whoever he could trust. And then he was going to end all this, the cycle of these books, these prophecies. Of Destiny._

_ He was going to kill Essex, or he was going to die trying._

-oOo-


	9. Moments

NB: Yes, I stole some dialogue at the end there - but I really couldn't help myself. It was perfect. :)

Hope you all had a very merry Christmas, and that you all have a wonderful New Year!

-Ludi x

* * *

**: TWIST OF FATE :**

**_PART ONE: _****DRIVE**

**(9) - Moments -**

_She walks in on his memory._

_ She sees him huddled in the corner of some crawling alley, burnt dollar bills scattered around him, the fruits of the Oyama job gone up in flames._

_ She knows what he's thinking._

_ Everything he touches is ruined._

_ Everything he touches he destroys._

_ He can't even start over in this place, this place where everyone gets a second chance, even if it means walking with shadows, living out on the streets and beginning again from the very bottom with no hope of ever working your way up._

_ She steps in closer, she sees his burnt hands and she sees he's crying._

_ She's never seen him cry._

_ Ever._

_ Not even for her._

_ And she wants to reach out, she wants to hold him in her arms and tell him it'll be okay, that one day they'll meet and she'll make it all better for him. That she'll _try_._

_ And as she moves forward to tell him that, Sinister steps right through her._

_ He goes to him first._

_ He reaches out a hand to the nineteen year old Remy, and he says "Come. I can make it better. Come."_

_ And she knows what happens next._

_ And she doesn't want to see._

_ But she knows that if he doesn't go with Sinister he'll never meet her and they'll never make any of _this_ happen._

_ And she swallows the lump in her throat because she knows he'll make that decision, he'll always make that decision to come her way, even if it takes him to the depths of hell and back and… …_

_ "Psst."_

_ She hears it. A hiss in the darkness. Quickly followed by a hand worming its way into her palm._

_ She turns and sees him._

_ Thirteen year-old Cody._

_ "Cody?" she murmurs, confused, and he smiles up at her with his sunshine smile and says, "Not _this_. You need to be somewhere else. She told me to take you there."_

_ She looks at him all confused, and his smile is so reassuring, so comforting…_

_ "C'mon, Anna Marie. Ah'll show you."_

_ He leads her away from Remy and Essex._

_ They turn in the darkness and there is a door._

_ "There," he says, and he lets go of her hand._

_ And she hesitates._

_ She looks down at the boy she killed with a kiss._

_ And he smiles encouragingly and she steps forward._

_ She puts out a hand and pushes open the door, and it gives as easy as cutting through butter and she walks over the threshold and…_

_She's standing in the wreckage of some government facility, a cavernous complex that has long been stripped of almost every material that could have been of any use._

_ All that remains is shelving; dominoed filing cabinets with their contents strewn unceremoniously about the floor. This was an archive. Clipboards and subject reports lie scattered like snow. She doesn't need to read what they say. She knows already._

_ She's come here for a reason. She knows that reason is here. She's known for a long time now – she just resisted for so long that now, standing here in this long-buried place, this long-forgotten secret… it feels too late._

_ She bends over to pick up a half-burned piece of paper from the ground. The charring is distinctive, mottled in strange, ink spill patterns. Her mouth twists. Remy's been here._

_ She stands and lets the scrap float to the ground._

_ "Why were you here, Remy?" she murmurs. "What were you lookin' for?"_

_ "Me," says a voice behind her, and she swings round, the darkness showing its face at last. "He was looking for me."_

-oOo-

She awoke with a half-formed scream dying on her lips and her heart crashing in her chest.

It took a long, lingering moment for her to acclimatise to the darkened shell of the motel room, the colourless walls and furnishings.

Somehow she expected _him_ to be there, huddled in the corner or beside her or somewhere in the darkness of the room.

But he wasn't.

He was out again.

And it had all been just a dream.

Rogue rolled over and stared at the clock on the nightstand.

02:47.

And he wasn't there.

She leaned across and switched on the lamp, flooding the room with a paltry but welcome light, one that slowly chased away the shadows of her nightmare till they dwindled to almost nothing.

She inhaled, exhaled.

She could hear the rain on the windowpane and she wondered where he was. The dull ache in the pit of her stomach told her that he wanted,_ needed_, to run away again, because it was what he _did_.

But then he had always come back. He had _always_ been walking this path back towards her. She'd only absorbed him in a short, single moment, but somehow she'd absorbed enough of his memories to know that. She understood, without fully comprehending, that he had been _destined_ to walk her way, that she had been destined to walk his, for them to both fall into this Venus fly trap and never get out again. That the cold hands of destiny would always deliver him into her palms.

She somehow knew that Irene had always known it too.

And not for the first time she wondered what it all meant, when he wasn't here _now_.

Rogue sighed and cast a glance at the laptop sleeping on the desk. He'd been working on it right before he'd left earlier that evening, and she was pretty sure he hadn't turned it off. Her judgement was telling her to ignore it. Her curiosity was telling her to look.

_What the hell… he wouldn't have left the darn thing open if he didn't want me to have a look…_

She threw back the covers, got up and crossed over to the desk, sliding a finger over the touch pad and watching the screen blink into life, stubbornly demanding a password.

Rogue hesitated.

She didn't _want_ to break his trust; she didn't want to give him a reason to despise her. But she wanted to _know_. She wanted to know what it was that so consumed him, that kept him up so many nights.

She flexed her fingers, ignoring Logan's scars, splayed the tips over the keyboard. Without even thinking she typed in her own name and hit enter.

ACCESS DENIED.

Her lips twisted into a self-deprecating grimace. Of course not. Too easy. Not to mention gross hubris on her part.

She tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth and tried again.

_Belle_, she typed in.

ACCESS DENIED again.

She was about to give in when she felt him, soft and warm and slippery beneath her skull, a familiar crinkle of a smile in the darkness…

_You're gettin' warm, chere_, he whispered, like silk on skin; and she typed out the name, heart beating fast, a streak of jealous lodging obstinately in the pit of her stomach as her fingers spelled out _Belladonna_.

Enter.

ACCESS DENIED.

She huffed impatiently, blowing a curl out of her face unsuccessfully. And he fluttered there, like the wings of a butterfly beating softly, a low slide of a chuckle rippling like a chocolate waterfall in her mind, saying; _Not dat. T'ink about it, chere. Whassa 'nother name for belladonna?_

The words echoed, faded.

He was gone – but whatever impresson he had left, it stuck. She leaned closer to the laptop and without a second thought typed it.

A poisonous plant, beautiful and deadly in turns.

_Deadlynightshade._

And finally she was through, squinting as the words on the bleached out screen slowly became legible.

It was a scan of a type-written document, partially redacted.

_Dr. Nathan Milbury has approved the latest consignment of infants shown to have the X-gene, numbered 231-235 above. Parental consent has been obtained. Of special interest is subject designated X-235, female, aged 6 months, born — Preliminary testing has shown that the subject possesses potential Omega level characteristics… Dr. Milbury suggests further study over the next week be concentrated on this subject before further appraisal is conducted…_

She scrolled down a few pages, but all it was was more of the same. There was nothing of interest. Nothing.

He'd spent weeks on this and found nothing.

She sighed and snapped the laptop shut.

She considered phoning him, but she didn't want to face what she might hear on the other end. She'd been too afraid to call him out on this and she was avoiding asking herself why. The truth was, there were any number of reasons why. Because they weren't _together_. Because he was who he was. Because she was lucky to have a piece of him, right, when she'd let so many other men have a piece of her and she knew he didn't like it and…

There he was again. Crying in the corner.

She pressed back the dream, massaging the bridge of her nose wearily. Would these dreams, these _memories_ just leave her alone already? She was so _tired_…

Rogue pushed back the chair and stood. Wherever he was, what did it matter? He'd always come back. Right?

_Right, Irene?_ she asked of the darkness.

She expected no answer. And there was still enough doubt in her to bring her to a decision. She was going to wait, goddammit. She was going to wait for him to come back.

The remote was on the desk beside her and she switched on the TV, turned it to mute. She sat at the end of the bed and waited for the boy who cried no more.

-oOo-

It was still raining when Remy pulled up outside the motel, the _phut, phut, phut_ of his bike drumming softly in the greyness of the dawn.

He glanced at his watch.

5:21.

Too early for sleep, too late to be awake.

He sighed and killed the engine.

He didn't want to go inside. He didn't want to risk facing this thing he'd spent the entire night running from, the pages of a book that spelled out the chapters of his life, all the chapters between now and an image of Rogue beneath Sinister's blade.

The whiskey, the smokes, the stolen kisses – they were all just a way of moving past this image, a way of proving to himself that he was his own damn master and that Rogue didn't need him, that she would be okay.

And yet here he was. Right back here. Unable to help himself.

He stepped off the bike, and when he got to the motel door he paused. He leaned his forehead against the door jamb and he tried to breathe.

He could walk. He could run. He could give up this fool's quest. He could reclaim what little vestige of self-will he knew he still owned. Couldn't he?

_What you doin', LeBeau? _he asked himself. _Why you here? Is it really so damn hard to break free?_

Because he'd tried. Lord knew he'd tried. But he couldn't. He couldn't quite break whatever this was.

_Green-eyed bottles wink at him in the light behind the bar, and this should be him in survival mode because he's pretty sure he's walking into some kind of trap, and only fools carry on walking when they think they have an ambush figured out._

_ He's still walking._

_ He's gonna end up walking off a cliff with her hand in his, and shit, it makes it about ten fucking times worse to drag her down with him._

_ But he's still walking._

_ The bargirl pours him another drink._

_ She's pretty in an unexceptional kinda way, black bob, false eyelashes, red lips. She leans across the bar and says something he can't quite catch, but he doesn't need to hear her, he knows from experience exactly what she means when she smiles at him the way she smiles._

_ "I'm kinda spoken for," he says, and she says,_

_ "So does your girlfriend 'kinda' know you're here?"_

_ And he says, "Probably…"_

_ A man steps in beside him, orders a beer, and he dips into his pocket without even looking, takes out his wallet. The girl gets him the beer, and he goes to pay for it, he can't find his wallet. Remy bends over, straightens, says, "Here it is," and gives the guy the wallet. There's relief on his face; he thanks Remy, he pays for his beer, he slips the wallet back in his pants and as he turns to go Remy whips it right back out, slides it into his trench coat pocket._

_ So._

_ She gets off work an hour or two later._

_ He's out front smoking a cigarette he's stolen._

_ He knows Rogue will smell it on him when he gets back, but, fuck it._

_ He knows she'll smell her perfume on him as well, but fuck that too._

_ The bargirl kisses like Rogue doesn't. She kisses like she's angry at someone or something. Nothing remotely sexy about it. When she bites his neck, she bites it hard. Two minutes in and the whole idea of a mindless fuck has lost its allure. He thinks of the empty satisfaction he can find in a woman who isn't _her_ and the need in him runs cold._

_ He wonders if _this_ is in Irene's diaries._

_ Him walking away in wordless disgust._

_ "Prick!" the bargirl shrieks after him, and he's heard it a million times before, it bounces off like a rubber bullet._

_ And he walks, not because Irene says he should, but because he doesn't want it, he doesn't want it anymore._

He looked up, his breath catching like clouds in the frigid morning air.

What _did_ he want?

Helluva question.

He'd kept asking himself and he still didn't have a good answer.

And yeah, he could run. But he didn't think that was even an option anymore, so he pushed himself away from the doorframe and walked inside.

Rogue was half awake, half asleep, sitting at the end of the bed with her knees drawn up to her chin, watching the 24 hour CNN channel on mute. She looked up as he came in, cinnamon coloured waves tumbling about her face in an angry torrent. Just a look from those bottle green eyes and he saw how pointless it was to run. She reeled him in with the bare minimum of effort. He held his breath. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her looking this beautiful.

"Remy," she said. Was there judgement in her voice? If so, he couldn't read it. His throat closed over and he swallowed. He was dangerously on the verge of _something_ and he didn't like to think what.

"We need to talk," he spoke in a voice that sounded strangely breathless even to his own ears. She didn't question his statement. She simply nodded, and so he sat down beside her and rubbed at his mouth with his hands, thought about where to begin when there were any number of places he could start and none of them seemed ideal. He thought about telling her everything. _Everything_, when he didn't even know what _everything_ was. There was Essex, for a start. And there was Irene. He considered it. He considered telling her about what he had seen in her foster mother's diaries. But the idea of _that_, and all that it came with… He didn't think he could handle it.

And if that made him a chicken shit, then fuck, he was a chicken shit. He didn't care.

"I guess you wanna know where I've been all dis time," he said instead, dodging the whole idea of being the one to start and leaving it up to her what she wanted to know.

"Ah think Ah can tell," she replied softly, without an ounce of accusation in her voice. He looked at her then, questioning, and she reached out silently and touched his neck, the bruised patch of skin where the bargirl had bitten him. "Is _this_ what all those nights have been?"

Her fingers were warm and soft on his skin, and it was hell on earth not to seek further connection. He reached out and touched her hand, stroked the fingers that stroked his neck.

"Not'ing happened," he murmured, because nothing _had_; and this time it was her turn to look questioning.

"We ain't together, Remy LeBeau. Am Ah s'pposed to care whether somethin' happened or not?" she asked him with just that little hint of steel to her voice, and he chuckled softly.

"You can feel however de hell you want, Rogue," he replied dryly, after a moment. "But I know one t'ing for sure. You care. You do."

"And Ah'm guessin' that's a problem," she half-whispered, a little twist of _hurt _touching her lips, one he only recognised because he knew her so well.

"I ain't sure," he answered honestly. "I'm havin' a hard time figuring out what the hell de both of us signed up for."

And this time the little crease in her mouth had touched her brow.

"You're the one who asked me t' come with you, sugah…"

And, "_Oui_," he agreed.

"So lemme guess," she murmured. "You're havin' second thoughts."

And he couldn't help but say, "_Non_. Yes."

She bit her lip. When she pulled her hand away from his, he let her, but only because he knew that if he tried to hold her back he may well have invited her wrath. More so than he was currently doing, anyway. He watched as she stood and walked to the window with her arms about her, as if to keep out the cold; or perhaps, to rein in her anger.

"This was never s'pposed to be about us, Remy," she spoke at last, so quietly he almost didn't catch her. He gave a wry smile to himself, linked his fingers together in his lap, said, "You can t'ink dat if'n you want, _chere_. If'n it makes you _feel_ better."

She snapped round on him then, green eyes flashing.

"Ah wanted to find the X-Men," she hissed. "It's what _Ah_ signed up for leastways."

"Right." He nodded, serious. "And now?"

"And now…" She clamped her mouth shut over the words, momentarily confused, and he took advantage of the missed beat, said; "Both of us woulda been fools t' t'ink dat dis wouldn't have ended up in us sleepin' wit' each other…"

And _that_ was what did it. He could've sworn she'd have struck him down with a glance right then and there if she'd wanted to. He was pretty sure he'd _never_ seen her looking this beautiful.

"Dammit, Remy," she seethed at him through gritted teeth. "This really _is_ a fuckin' game to you, isn't it!"

"Rogue," he answered soberly, getting to his feet, "if dis was a game, we wouldn't be havin' dis conversation." He took a step towards her, hesitated when he saw the daggers still bared in her glance.

"So what d'you _want_ from me?" she spat at him, and he chanced another step, answered, "I need you t' tell me what de hell I'm doin', _chere_. 'Cos I ain't got a fuckin' clue."

Her mouth opened and closed. She looked like a thing underwater, gasping for air.

"Stop messin' with me, Remy," she almost growled at him. "If _you_ don't know what the hell you want, how am _Ah_ supposed to?!"

He almost took another step towards her, but checked himself mid-step. He knew exactly what he was doing. Manipulating her into making a decision for him. Either she told him she loved him and wanted him to stay, or she'd tell him to fuck off and leave her alone. Scenario one meant he'd carry on this crazy path he'd laid out for himself for her sake. Scenario two would give him an excuse to walk away. It wasn't fair of him, and he almost felt ashamed for even thinking of it.

And there was that damned question again.

What _did_ he want?

Damned if he knew anymore.

He knew what he _didn't_ want.

He didn't want to think about a world without her in it.

And he had to accept that thought for what it was. With all the _mess_ it entailed. And it entailed a _lot_.

So he did the only thing that he reasonably could. He took a mental step back, even as he crossed the room and stopped only to take her face between his palms.

"Listen, Rogue," he murmured, trying to _give _a little instead of take, "remember what I told you dat night after we pulled de con on Devereux? I meant what I said. I don't wanna hurt you."

"You don't wanna _be_ hurt," she reminded him, half wounded and half pacified by his words. "And dammit, Remy, if _that's_ what this is all about…"

"And here we are, so many weeks down de line, and we're still goin' round in circles…"

"You're the one who started it…"

"Did I?"

"Yes, Remy," she murmured pointedly. "You said we needed t' talk. And from what you're sayin', it sounds like this is gettin' way too complicated for you to handle."

He blinked. It was almost as if she'd snatched the words out of his mind. When he made no reply, she touched his hands, slid them off her cheeks.

"Ah came here t' find X-Men, Remy," she continued softly. "That ain't a lie. But Ah'd also be lyin' if Ah said Ah didn't come here for you. And Ah ain't gonna pretend that _this_ don't hurt." She reached out and rubbed the mark on the side of his neck absently, saying, "If you want me t' go, Remy, just tell me and Ah will…"

And he realised just how neatly, just how cleverly the tables had been turned on him; that she'd outmanoeuvred him without even knowing it. She'd never even entertained the idea of pushing him away. It has always been down to _her_ to walk away from _him_, not vice versa, because she wanted to spare him feelings she didn't even know he had.

And yeah.

That's what it was.

_Feelings._

Making his stomach flip over and his breath catch when he was this close to her, trying to trick her into derailing this whole sickening trajectory they were both on. He knew what he was. A selfish bastard. A selfish bastard who was too chicken shit to tell her _this is all a mistake and it's over_.

Or, _Essex wants you dead, and I don't know if I can stop him._

Or, _it's easier for me to walk away and forget you than watch you die and live wit' myself afterwards…_

Or… …

And then he noticed that she wasn't even looking at him; that her entire frame had gone rigid. She was looking over his shoulder in the direction of the TV, her expression stricken.

"Rogue, what…?" he began, but she was already pushing him aside, and he watched on in confusion as she picked up the remote from the end of the bed and put up the volume.

There was a babble of noise, the flicker of camera flashes, and he saw a man he recognised fighting to get through a gaggle of journalists… And he realised he'd seen this footage before, that he'd watched it before _more_ than once, and it was Troy Rifkind, _Troy Rifkind,_ with his baby blue eyes and his slick blond hair and _Rogue flirting with him in her little green dress, cherry red lips he knew Rifkind would kiss, and he stops the tape, he stops the tape and he burns it because he knows, he _knows_ what happens next… …_

The memory hit him like a kick in the solar plexus; and somehow he was aware of the words from the broadcast, each and every one descending on him like an avenging angel.

_Troy Rifkind… former deputy director… Trask Technologies… found dead… New York apartment… Overdose… Suicide._

_ Suicide._

Grim satisfaction, the jealousy inside him appeased.

Gut-wrenching dread, as Rogue swept passed him and right out the door, slamming it shut behind her as she left.

-oOo-

It was like swimming underwater, not knowing when or if you were ever going to surface.

The damp morning air hit Rogue like a slap in the face and she breathed, she breathed without knowing it, without feeling it. When she came to a stop, it was in the rain with the world tunnelling all around her, with the bile rising in her throat.

_And she lies on her back, panting, staring at the ceiling as he levers himself off of her; and he smiles, he leans in to kiss her mouth, and Lord knows she can't help it, she twists her face away so that his lips land on her cheek._

Go away go away please go away,_ she thinks, but he doesn't take the hint, he chases her mouth and she has to give in, she can't risk his suspicion… …_

_ "You're so beautiful, Anna," he says, and he strokes her hair, and she closes her eyes and thinks herself back to the lake, under the cedar tree, in the butterfly pendant and the virginal white sundress… …_

_ … … He cleans up in the bathroom, water running, murmured humming. She lies there, her eyes smarting with rage._

_ Why does she feel so violated?_

_ None of this matters anymore, does it?_

_ But it does it does it does._

_ Her body's betrayed her._

_ The memory of her orgasm still ripples through her mind like mocking laughter._

_ He comes out of the bathroom._

_ He lies on the bed next to her, he throws an arm about her waist._

_ He's asleep within minutes._

_ She plucks at his hand, disengages herself from him. She gets onto her hands and knees and stares down at him._

_ She's so tempted. So tempted, in a way she's never been before, to drain him dry. To put her hands round his throat and pull so hard that there's nothing left but a husk. She doesn't even know why. She doesn't think she could stand having him in her head, but she _wants_ this in a real way. She wants to kill him, just like she once killed Cody. She wants it so bad she feels dizzy with it. She has to bunch her hands so tight that her nails dig into her skin, just to stop herself._

_ It's like swimming underwater, not knowing when or if you're ever going to surface._

_ But she surfaces, somehow._

_ She finds herself staring down at him, weak and defenceless and ripe for the taking; and in his blond hair, in the baby blue eyes now closed in sleep, she suddenly sees him._

_ She sees Cody, dead and staring._

_ And then Troy Rifkind, dead and staring._

_ She sees what she can do, and it scares her._

_ And it confuses the hell out of her because she still wants it. She still wants back what he's stolen from her. It's the line she wants. The line that she draws between _them_ and _her _just so she can separate, just so she can keep her sanity_.

_She snatches her hands back._

_ She lies back down on the bed and turns her back on him. _

_ She breathes hard and tries not to think, _Ah want you dead, Ah want you dead_, and she pushes down the wave of nausea and… …_

She gagged, held it down with an effort.

Wish come true. Way-fucking-hey.

And the irony was, she hadn't even thought of him the past month or two. She hadn't even cared whether he was alive or dead.

And now he was. Dead. And the truth was making her world cave in, close in around her like something ugly and physical and _real_. It crawled up inside her till her head swam and the whispers she'd held back for so long began to skitter under her skull. The world span and went still. There was nothing but the sound of it. The world, the rain, the voice in her head telling her one thing. That the moment she'd met Troy Rifkind, she'd killed him. She'd_ killed_ him.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been standing there when she heard him. Even in all this air, in all this rain, she could still smell the tang of him, all spice to her sweetness.

"Rouge?"

His voice was low, even, carefully pitched; neutral to a fault. It wasn't what she wanted. She wanted something to rail against, something to bleed out all the rage and anguish in her into some tangible, physical form. What she wanted was hate.

"Ah'm done talkin', Remy," she said instead coldly, as coldly as she could bear when every inch of her was trembling with anger and self-loathing. "Leave me alone."

"Fine," he said behind her, after a short pause, mirroring her own tone. "But you shouldn't be feelin' guilty. Not for him."

She snorted, an icy smile touching her lips.

"What would you know about it?"

"Enough to know dat it wasn't your fault. His actions, his decision. Not yours."

She fought with it. The calm logic of his words. Challenging her to let go of it all, the hurt she'd nursed for these three long years, the wound that was now raw, reopened and bleeding.

"Ah drove him to it," she insisted, sullen, stubborn, unwilling to let go.

"Really?" Still that same cool tone… "How?"

"Ah tricked him into it," she answered quietly. "If I hadn't met him, none of this woulda happened to him."

"Bullshit, Rogue." And this time there was real disdain in his voice. "A man like dat, anythin' could happen to him at any time. Trust me, I know. What you did was just a job. Just a job, Rogue."

"A job that ended up killin' a man," she concluded obstinately. She couldn't see him, but she felt him edge a step closer to her.

"Why do you blame yourself, Rogue?" he asked her in a softer tone. "Why not Raven, or Irene?"

"Cos Ah hated him enough to _want_ him dead!" she admitted in a rushed breath; and unlike the walls he built around himself, the ones she was unable to penetrate, she couldn't help baring herself to him. She was wide open to him now, completely in his power. And it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair for him to come here, with his calm and his reason and strip her bare. Not when he had the scent, the marks, of other women on him. And suddenly she was angry, she was whipping round on him, spilling out in a torrent: "Ah _slept_ with him, Remy?! Do you understand that?! Do you _get_ it?!"

For the first time she saw something other than that calm control, that self-assured smile he always wore. When she saw it – the tautness of his jaw, the steely acceptance on his face – she knew that she had wounded him. The resulting sense of triumph had all the weight of a ball and chain. She let out a mirthless laugh, saying: "But yah knew that already, didn't you."

He nodded stiffly. "I guessed, before I knew," he replied quietly, so quietly that her throat closed over and she turned away from him again with the rancour gone out of her.

"Ah'm sorry," she half whispered, not sure who she was saying the words to. Partly to him, but also, she thought, to Rifkind, to herself, to _everything. _She looked down into the inky puddles at her feet, the raindrops splashing into them in boisterous greeting. Till this moment she hadn't realised how much shame and guilt she'd carried with her. She'd escaped from New York; she'd escaped many of the burdens she'd acquired with the Brotherhood. But not everything could be left behind. There were some things you took with you, wherever you went.

"Tell me," he said quietly, breaking her train of thought.

"About what?" she muttered belligerently.

"About _them_," he rejoined; there was grit to his voice, like he was steeling himself for something he knew he wasn't going to like. "About those guys you had to sleep wit'." He seemed to be struggling with the word _guys_ and she knew he would've inserted any choice expletive in its place if not for her sake. She sensed it. She sensed exactly what he was trying not to say.

_Tell me about them, and I swear to God I will try not to fuckin' destroy somet'ing when I hear it, chere_.

She didn't _want_ to tell him. At least she'd never _intended _to. But somehow all sense of pride was gone. Somehow she couldn't help herself.

"It ain't what you're thinkin'," she found herself explaining; she didn't dare look him in the face. "There was only ever a handful." She glanced down at the one hand she could count them on, realising that this was the most honest she'd ever been about this part of her life. "But with most of them it was cold and calculated. Like you always say – _just a job_." She halted, not knowing how to say the next words but taking the plunge anyhow. "Troy… he was the only one who gave me any sort of pleasure. And Ah hated him for it. Part of me _wanted _him dead. And now he is." She lifted her head, feeling that somehow, in saying the words out loud, she was expelling him from the depths of her. She half-turned, seeing him step in beside her, no sign of anger or coldness in him. Just that same calmness, that same acceptance. An openness, an invitation for her to pour out everything; a challenge for her to see if he could take it. Yet despite this realisation, she found that she could only ask him, "What does it say about me, Remy?"

"What I've always known," he replied with a certainty she did not feel. "Dat you ain't a killer, Rogue. Even by proxy." At the words she swallowed the thickness in her throat, and when she looked up again, she saw that he was looking straight at her, his gaze open and unwavering. "What you have, Rogue… It's called integrity. Somet'ing I lost a long time gone. An' I always admired it in you."

She looked away, finding a cruel irony in his words.

"Integrity… In a whore…"

"You ain't a whore, Rogue."

Her laugh was frosty.

"Ah'm worse than a whore… Ah didn't even have a price."

"De price was a good cause," he corrected her gently. "You did what you did for somethin' you believed in. And dat's what I mean, Rogue. You have integrity. Even when de world's going to shit, you keep on clingin' to Xavier's dream."

"Like a fool," she murmured, but he shook his head.

"_Non_. Like de good person dat you are."

She gazed out into the dimness of the morning punctuated by the gleam of light on rainwater, and she wondered why, _why_, when he had spent so many evenings in the company of _other women_…why was he being so kind to her? Why was he saying all this to her when he'd been so distant…? She couldn't stand his gentleness when all she wanted was to scream and shout and wail.

"Please go…" she half-whispered in a voice that wavered between hardness and bitter emotion. "_Please_…"

He didn't respond at first, as though he couldn't quite believe the rejection. When he finally did, it was with the finest vein of irritation.

"Fine." And the word was like ice. "You want me gone, I'm gone." She heard him turn, walk a few steps, then pause and walk right back. "But you wanna know somet'ing, Rogue? You wanna know why I asked you t' come wit' me? _Truthfully?_ It was to take you away, Rogue. To take you away from all de shit they was makin' you do, from everythin' they were tryin' to make you _become_."

She swallowed, still unable to turn to him, still unable to face this thing she wanted but didn't _deserve_… And it was _that_ that pissed him off. She could feel it radiating from him. Anger. That she couldn't face what he had done for her because he believed she was the only thing in this world that deserved it.

"Are you hearin' me, Rogue?" he snapped. "Do you even _care_? All de things I've done for you, for the _whore_ you say you are! All de dirty, sordid things I've stooped to for de only woman who's ever made me feel I could do somet'ing _good_! I _killed_ for you, Rogue. Not once, not twice. Over and over and over. And Anton Simmons' secretary. I fucked her, Rogue. I fucked her for _you_."

She did move then. Whipped round and smacked him hard in the face. He took it with a triumphant smile; and she realised that what he'd wanted was nothing more than a reaction, for her to _look_ at him.

"Ah never wanted your _help_!" she seethed at him.

"So fuckin' _what_? You're gonna get it!" His eyes were burning so bright they seemed to bleed. "Dis t'ing between us, it's bigger den de both of us, it's what keeps us comin' back to each other again and again and again, whether we like it or not. You t'ink I haven't tried to break it? You t'ink I haven't tried to stop you and _it_ from fuckin' up my life? Do you know how many times I've nearly cheated on you de past few days, just t' test how strong dis t'ing really is, t' show myself how easy it'd be to walk away from you and never look back?"

This time it was her fist she raised to him, but he was ready for it; he caught her by the wrist and jerked her towards him, so that she was within an inch of his face and couldn't look away even if she tried.

"Don't you get it, Rogue?" And his voice was low, charged, angry and helpless and tender all at once. "I _love_ you. I can't get away from it. And neither can _you_."

And she felt it. This thing. This thing between them, holding, _impelling_ them together in its greedy embrace since the very first moment they'd met.

And in that one moment they let it have them.

They gave into it, their mouths finding one another in a desperate kiss, as though to fight it, as if struggling against this thing that kept them together when neither of them wanted to be apart. They kissed one another back to the room without grace, without tenderness, a frenzied tangle of hands and limbs as they tore at each other's clothes in a battle both for and against bittersweet connection.

Love like quicksand; the harder you fight it, the deeper you fall. They scrabbled at the edge, their final stand against the inevitable, knowing it was hopeless.

And when at last they slipped over that precipice, hands and bodies joined in desperate congress, they saw that there was nothing, nothing in the world so beautiful and frightening as what lay on the other side.

-oOo-

It was cool, damp.

They lay on their backs side by side in the murky morning greyness, sated and silent, listening to the sound of passing cars in the rain, watching the meandering glimmer of their headlights sliding across the window.

She was trying not to think of Troy Rifkind, trying not to remember his baby blue eyes, eyes now dead and cold and staring, the eyes she had seen merging with Cody's that night at the Ritz.

She tried not to remember looking down into his face and seeing Cody's dead eyes staring at her.

She tried not to think about the fact that the murderess in her had wanted the same for Rifkind, when he was now lying cold and still on some slab somewhere.

"You're still bothered by it, aren't you," Remy spoke up beside her, the first words either of them had spoken since they'd come in from the rain. She ran a hand through her damp, tousled hair, teased out the knots slowly.

"Ah could've killed him that night," she murmured softly.

"But you didn't," he pointed out. It was no good. She could still see him looking at her from every corner of the room.

"Was weird," she continued, ignoring Remy's comment. "When Ah looked at him that night, Ah kept seein' Cody. Ah kept seein' Cody's face after Ah'd killed him. Dead eyes lookin' right up at me, tellin' me Ah was a killer already, that it wouldn't matter if Ah killed again. That he'd deserve it."

He said nothing, and she turned her head to look at him, seeing his eyes still on the ceiling.

"Don't it bother you?" she asked him straight. "That Ah wanted to kill him?"

"Wantin' t' kill him ain't de point, _chere_," he answered simply. "It was de fact dat you _didn't_." He reached out instinctively for the nightstand, searching for a packet of cigarettes that wasn't there. "If it's my disapproval you're aimin' for, _chere_, you ain't gonna get it. So you killed a guy, and slept wit' a few more. Would be pretty rich for _me _to judge you, is all I'm sayin'."

She stared at him.

"Seriously?" Her tone was incredulous. "It really don't bother you?"

"What?"

"Those guys Ah slept with?"

When he replied, his tone was plain, matter-of-fact.

"It bothers me dat it bothers you."

She chewed on his answer, so simple, so accepting. Because at the end of the day, what did it matter to him? He still wanted her. He'd still take her however she was. He could be honest about _that_ fact, even if nothing else.

Rogue half-frowned to herself.

She remembered the words he had said to her, the Gambit in her head. _You'll have to tell him. Sooner or later_.

And she _wanted_ to tell him. She wanted to tell him that she had absorbed him that day in the snow. That she knew things about him, had _seen_ things about him, things that she knew he had never wanted to share with her, that he _still_ didn't. She owed him the truth; that sometimes she dreamed his nightmares, that she knew how much he hurt sometimes, that she got where he was coming from, even if she didn't have all the facts.

He'd been honest with her today, after all. More honest than she knew he'd ever meant to be. And there was an irony in it, this role reversal. That this time, _she_ was the one with something to hide. Whilst his secrets had fallen from his lips unwillingly, she would have given hers up in a moment if she didn't think he would be uncomfortable with it; that he would hate it, even. He would hate that she had taken that most private part of him and had access to it. The things she wanted to talk to him about – they were all things she had stolen from him. Belle, and Sinister, and the real, physical pain his powers had once given him – she wanted to ask him about them. To seek the truth. To comfort him if she had to. She was ready for it. She just didn't think _he_ was.

He rolled over, planting his elbows either side of her, looking down on her with questioning eyes.

"What are you t'inkin' about?"

She couldn't lie.

"You."

His smile curved like the moon in the dimness.

"_Bon_. As long as you ain't t'inkin' about dat shit, Rifkind."

"He wasn't a bad man, Remy," she told him soberly.

"_Chere_, you don't t'ink anyone's a 'bad man'. But I guess dat's why I like you."

He twisted one of her curls lazily round his forefinger, studying the café au lait effect of brown and white.

"There's so much Ah want t' ask you," she murmured, unable to help herself.

"About what?" he asked, still concentrating on her hair.

"_Everythin'_."

He stopped. The curl bounced free of his finger; he stared at her, saying nothing.

"Ah barely know you," she explained.

"You know everything you need to know 'bout me, _chere_," he said.

"Really? Sometimes Ah get the feelin' there's stuff you'd like t' tell me, but yah just don't know how…"

He thought about it.

"It ain't dat, _chere_," he said at last. "It's just… everyt'ing is a risk for me."

"Why?"

"Because…" He paused, trying to find the words. "Because givin' away bits of myself is like givin' away _who I am_."

"_This _must be huge risk for you then," she murmured, running her fingertips along his cheek.

"It is."

She bit her lip, chewing on his words.

"In that case, Ah guess you've shown me a whole lot more of yourself than you have to anyone else," she summed up.

"You know more den most," he conceded.

_But not even halfway enough…_ she couldn't help but think.

"You must get scared sometimes," she half joked instead. "Wonderin' just how many of the puzzle pieces Ah'll end up fittin' together…"

He smiled as if to say he hadn't quite thought of it in that way…

"Rogue, I'm a lotta t'ings about you. Dunno if I've got enough room to be scared…"

"Admit it though," she persisted with a wry smile. "You hate the idea of it. Me _knowin'_ you. That's why it was all fine and good back at the safe house. We came and we went. No questions asked. Just a moment in time with no strings attached. That's why things have got kinda… Ah dunno… _weird_, since we left New York."

"Hm." He thought about it, absently tracing the bow of her lips with his fingertip. "Not weird. Just different. Knowin' I'm gonna wake up tomorrow mornin' wit' you by my side... And de mornin' after dat, and de one after dat…"

"And it scares the hell outta you, doesn't it," she murmured softly, each word a kiss on his fingertip. "Me, always there to steal your secrets and make you into a man you never wanted to be."

His finger paused at her lower lip as he considered her statement.

"Maybe de man you make me is better than de man I am…"

"Ah don't want to make you anythin' than what you are…" she said quietly, stroking his hairline with a forefinger.

"But you do, Rogue. You make me t'ink of somet'ing more den myself. You have done for years now." His finger moved downward, traversing the dip and rise of her chin, the sheer cliff down to her throat, the column of her neck and the ridge of her clavicle, all the way down to the pendant at her breast where he stopped, his eyes marking details in the blue and green enamel that she could not see. "I want you and I don't. I want to be de man you make me and I want t' be de man dat I _am_."

Silence. She wanted to tell him she got it, that she understood, or that at least she thought she did.

Instead she reached out and touched the bite mark on his neck, fought the urge to kiss away every last millimetre of it.

"Why?" she asked softly, simply, running her fingers up and down that small patch of skin as though she could erase it with a thought. And he took her fingers in his own, removed them from his neck and pressed them to his lips, saying, "Cos I can't believe dat dis is de most I'll ever want out of anyone. 'Cos I can't believe you're de only one I can want dis wit'. 'Cos I can't believe I can't get back de man I used t' be. Is dat enough of an answer for you, Anna?"

She thought about it. She decided she liked the way he said her name. He made it sound… nice. Like it really belonged to her.

"Ah want you to do whatever makes you happy," she said at last, decidedly. He chuckled.

"You sayin' I'm free to smoke all de cigs, drink all de booze, and sleep wit' any _femme _dat I want?"

"You only asked me t' come with you, sugah," she reminded him wryly. "Yah didn't ask me to be your wife."

He laughed.

"No. I didn't. I didn't ask for anythin' at all."

"You don't need to ask," she pointed out dryly.

"No, I don't. But maybe _dat's_ what makes me happy. I ain't sure yet."

A car passed by outside, its headlights slicing through the half-drawn Venetian blinds, sliding across their flesh like pillars of starlight. She thought again how beautiful he was; how near and yet so far he seemed to be. Even lying here, this close to him, he seemed to be like sand between her fingers, slipping through her grasp even as he held her just as surely in his own. There was nothing in the world she wanted more than him. She never knew she could love a thing so much.

She stroked his cheekbone with her fingers, trying to erase the mark she'd left when she'd hit him earlier, trying to make it better.

"Ah'm sorry for this," she murmured, but he leaned in closer, his hair grazing her cheeks, his lips brushing her own as he whispered, "Shhh."

They kissed, slow, meandering, unhurried. The minutes melted by in a haze, and later she watched him sleep for all the world like a little boy lost. She drew the outline of his face, his brow, his nose, his lips, thinking how easy it would be to take it all. Moments, memories shared. _His_ memories, his memories of her, how he really felt when he was with her, all his secrets laid bare and ripe for the picking, sweet and soft and plump and juicy as strawberries. She could almost taste them on her lips. Like the sweetest of drugs, the most addictive of narcotics. She could never get enough.

She was lost so deep in her reverie that she hardly noticed he'd woken up and was staring right back at her.

"What?" he questioned softly, brushing curls away from her cheek.

"We've had a lot of moments, Remy," she whispered back. "Good ones. Bad ones."

"_Oui_."

"They're not enough."

His gaze flickered in the darkness, never breaking once with hers, and it gave her strength, gave her the courage to ask for the thing that had been pushing at her, welling up deep inside her, for years and years.

"They've made me greedy, Remy. Ah want a lifetime."

That flicker again, whether of doubt or something else she couldn't tell.

"Okay," he replied after a long moment. She sucked in a disbelieving breath.

"Okay?"

And she could hardly dare believe it…

"No promises," he said without an ounce of artifice; his fingers slid gently between hers. "Not yet, anyway. We take t'ings day by day, see where it leads." He squeezed her hand once. "Fair?"

This was a gamble for him – everything to gain and everything to lose – cards on the table, lying open before her. This man who never gave his heart away, who never gambled with it in case he lost… he was taking a risk. On her. She squeezed his hand back and whispered; "It's a start."

And she closed her fist over that last grain of sand.

They turned that hourglass over and began again. Together.

-oOo-

- END OF PART ONE -


	10. Lost & Found

**: TWIST OF FATE :**

**_PART TWO: _RACHEL**

**(10) - Lost & Found -**

_May 2013_

This is the rhythm of the world.

It is the beat of her feet on the pavement, the staccato rasp of her breath, the thundering percussion of her heartbeat in her ears.

By day it's the sirens, the people, the traffic, the soundless hollow of sleep if she can get it. It is the movement of a city that has no name, it is the purring of vehicles on the road, the scream of the trains and the hostile looks. It is the slow march of the Sentinels and the babble of the radio. It is an alien world with alien pastimes, which she watches with the dread fascination of a foreigner in a strange and frightening new country.

The people scare her most – the sound of a hundred voices in her head, their thoughts invading _her_ thoughts until she thinks she'll die with it. It'd taken her several hours to figure out how to turn them off completely, how to keep them out and save herself the descent into madness.

The night is more familiar to her. It is an acappella of human voices punctuated by crawling silences – the howl of the Hounds, the shouts of the drunks, the wolf whistles of the lecherous men, the dull thud of heels and fists on flesh and bone.

And there is the beat of her feet on the pavement, the staccato rasp of her breath, the thundering percussion of her heartbeat in her ears.

At the centre of this dissonant symphony is Rachel Summers and precious little else. She has a name and the clothes upon her back. Everything else comes to her in bits and pieces, in nightmares. It's why she tries not to sleep. It's why she doesn't understand the names people call her, and why she's hunted every night. It's why she runs and doesn't stop.

Tonight is no exception.

Rachel had stopped questioning why it was; it just _was_. They chased. She ran. They threatened. She hid. Cast adrift in a life without any memories, it hardly seemed strange to her that every town was the same, that every person was there to take advantage, that every man should be as ugly and wicked as Bluebeard and that she should run as fast she she could from them.

She was doing it now.

She could hear the chorus of her hunter's boot heels on the sidewalk behind her. She had one natural advantage compared to most of her pursuers and that was agility. It was something she always made good use of. She leapt over trashcans and fire hydrants like a gazelle, putting anything she could find between her and her hunter – the contents of those trashcans, a broken trolley. She could hear her pursuer swearing behind her as he fell foul to most of the traps she'd laid. This man, she thought, was stupider than most. It bought her enough time to slip inside a filthy alleyway and hope against hope that he hadn't seen her.

Rachel crept into the corner, on tiptoe, as quiet as the mice at her feet; and despite the will of her mind _she couldn't stop_, she couldn't stop herself from breathing and she felt sure the whole world could hear her terror.

She slipped into the shadow of a dumpster and prayed he wouldn't find her. She couldn't count the number of times she'd done this before, but it didn't get better, because she'd never know what she would find in her would-be assailants. Even if she reached out with those strange powers of hers, what she found in other people's minds scared her more than being their prey. It was their thoughts, or their lack of thoughts – there was nothing coherent or rational in what she found there. Usually it was a babbling stream of angry voices, a red mist of hate. Most times, she would withdraw from them long before they had found her or given up the chase.

Catcalls sounded from the street beyond, hollers for her body, her blood. She shuddered in the darkness. It was so cold, and she felt so sick, so worn. How much longer would this go on, dear God? How much longer could she wander like this, being hunted from day to day, without even a past to hang on to? There were no sweet, comforting memories, only the nightmares of a life she could barely remember. And how could she face a future that was no better than her past?

She coughed, clearing the gritty substance that had been in her throat for days now. Even covering her mouth did not entirely muffle the sound, but she couldn't help it, even if she knew it could cost her.

_Crunch_.

Rachel froze, raising her other hand to her mouth now, trying desperately to still her breathing.

_Crunch_.

There it was again. The faint sound of a boot sole on broken glass. Somebody was there. Somebody had found her.

She was holding onto her mouth so hard she was trembling; how far was he from her now? She couldn't tell. Usually they'd broadcast their presence to her with their taunts and their jibes – but this one said nothing, nothing at all. And she didn't dare cast out with her mind for fear of those terrible, frightening, all-consuming thoughts…

…_And she scoots backwards into the corner, scrabbling to get away with both her legs, the shadow advancing on her step by awful step, and her back hits the wall, she can't go any further, she's trapped here and she knows what'll come next…_

_ "Resist would you, girl?" Bluebeard hisses above her, face and body blacked out by the blinding white lab lights illuminating him from behind. "You _are_ the feisty one – always have been. But I can't allow you to get away with this. I _made_ you, and I will remake you yet!"_

_ And he raises the spear in his hand to plunge it in, and she can't bear it, not anymore, not the pain, not again, she'd rather die, and it all crashes in on her, what he has done to her, what he has turned her into, something she knows isn't her, not _really_…_

_ But she can't remember anything else but this – all she has known is the pain and the hate and the fight – and she realises – Bluebeard is right – he has made her in his own image, it is all she is and ever will be. A monster. A killer._

_ And the voice that comes out of her throat is inhuman as both her hands grasp the spear even as it drives down towards her. She takes the pain even as the electric field that surrounds the spear jolts through her, and she wrenches it from his grasp, casts it aside… She lunges for him with only one thought on her mind…_

_ Kill. Kill_.

"_Kill!_" Rachel screamed, leaping out from behind the dumpster and bowling into the body of her attacker, and suddenly they were both wrestling on the garbage-strewn ground, in the dirt and filth and muck, and Rachel realised it was a _woman_, a woman she was grappling with and not a man…

And in that moment of hesitation, the two stared at each other, green eyes on green, and the woman's mouth opened, a look of surprise and wonder and;

"_Rachel!_" she breathed in a voice that seemed so familiar and…

…_She's back in the snow with her prey broken and helpless beneath her, and she's going to _kill_, and that hand comes up, the pattern of five, long fingers ascending to meet her, and then – soft, warm flesh, and indescribable pain and – darkness…_

"_No!_" she screamed in a voice full of anguish, and she swung back with a claw-like hand, ready to impale, barely seeing the glint of metal flashing out of the corner of her eye, the staff whizzing in from out of nowhere, connecting with the pressure point in the side of her neck, and…

The lights went out.

-oOo-

She came to an indeterminable amount of time later, her consciousness swimming to the surface from a dreamless sleep.

She did not open her eyes. Instead she unfolded the tendrils of her psyche, slow, deliberate, testing the room for any sense of presence, reaching outward with her mind and hitting…

There were two people in the room. The first one a female mind, tempered as steel yet soft and fragile as a butterfly… And then the other, a man… and a wall. A wall of static, beneath the cracks a whole mess of emotions she couldn't even begin to read.

"You shouldn't've hurt her," came the woman's voice, a low murmur in a soft, Southern lilt.

"She could've killed you," said the man in a voice that was soft and dark and warm and strong and so many things that she was no longer surprised she couldn't read him.

"Ah had things under control," replied the woman and—

"I wasn' willin' t' take de risk," said the man.

There was a pause; suddenly she felt the wall around the man intensify, every chink snapping shut, blocking her out, making her tendrils instinctively recoil, and – "She's awake," said the man's voice in sharp warning, and she realised she'd been holding her breath, that he'd noticed, that he'd known then that she wasn't sleeping. No time to kick herself for being so stupid. Slowly she opened her eyes, the world unfolding before her dark and grey and blurry, and she blinked, seeing… seeing…

The woman first. Kneeling beside her, open and unguarded… Her face becoming clearer… A pale face, pink-lipped, framed by a torrent of cinnamon-coloured hair shot through with white… Green eyes that were familiar, oh so familiar…

"It's okay, Rae," the pink lips crooned softly, soothingly, "You're safe, sugah, you're safe."

"Safe?" Rachel whispered, as if daring herself to believe it… And the woman was emanating such warmth and kindness and trust that all of a sudden she felt tears spring to her eyes, that she wanted to cry…

"Yes," replied the woman, softly. "Yes, I promise…"

So saying she reached out to place a hand on Rachel's shoulder, the comforting gesture triggering a sudden train of memory, a _hand coming, the impression of fingers, fingers and flesh on her cheek, and somehow the pattern of the fingers had dragged her in under the –_

"_NO!"_ she screamed, bolting upright before the woman's hand could connect, and in another moment she had her hands round her throat as she shook with horror and tears of rage spilled from her eyes…

"What did you do to me?!" she shrieked, her hands squeezing, involuntarily, her whole body convulsing with fear and terror. "_What did you do to me?!_"

The woman was scrabbling, trying to pry apart her fingers, and Rachel could feel her own fear, her own terror, bleeding from this stranger, bleeding so hard that it almost startled her, that suddenly she let go…

And before she could come to herself she heard a whiz and a _shuck_, and the next moment something had slammed into her solar plexus, taking the wind out of her and pinning her back against a wall. For the first time she saw the man, the man standing above her, his face quiet and taut, angular features sharp with barely suppressed anger. In his hand he held a bo-staff, the weapon that now pinned her to the wall, glowing in the eerie pink light of his energy signature; his eyes, dark and red, were flaming, spurting a cold fire and he bared his teeth, the static crackling around him as he growled, "Pull dat again and so help me God I will fuckin' _kill_ you."

He jabbed the bo-staff into her rib-cage and she gasped, feeling the energy thrumming inside the titanium shaft, spilling into her flesh, her bones, ready to explode…

"Remy, _no_!" came the woman's voice, hoarse but urgent, and he didn't take those blazing eyes from Rachel, didn't take the charge away at all, replying through gritted teeth, "She's testin' me, _chere_, she is fuckin' _testin' _me…!"

"No," and the woman came into view again, her expression earnest, and Rachel saw her own handiwork, the dark and angry marks she had left round her throat. "She's scared, can't you see that? She doesn't remember us, she doesn't know who we are. What she's been through… all that pain, all that terror… _Everyone_ must be an enemy to her." She paused, placed a small, white hand upon the man's, the one that held the bo-staff. "Please," she breathed softly. "Stop."

The man was still looking at her, but the fire in his eyes was fading, the charge in the staff was dissipating and…

"_Please,_" the woman repeated, and in a split second, just a single split second, he had pulled back, releasing Rachel, switching off his power, turning away from the woman, stepping out of sight. The pink glow flickered out, leaving the room back in semi-darkness.

Rachel scooted back into a corner, her rib cage aching, her body shuddering from the memories, from the shock. She sat there and shivered, hid her face, wrapped herself into a ball and tried to hide, tried to hide from them, from the darkness, from _everything_, trembling so hard she thought she might shatter.

But there was the hand again, connecting, curling around her shoulder, no hurt, no pain, so gentle, so reassuring… How could she have thought that that hand could have harmed her?

"It's okay," said the kind voice behind the hand. "It's okay, Rae."

"You promised me—" Rachel whimpered, wanting to cry again in the face of that kindness.

"Ah know. Ah'm sorry. It won't happen again."

The voice, the touch was too soothing to be ignored. Rachel heaved a dry sob and peeked from between her fingers. She saw the woman for real this time. Her face was so gentle, so beautiful, so understanding… and yet filled with so much hurt and so much pain that she thought, she _really_ thought, that maybe this stranger would understand… …

She couldn't help it.

She fell into the woman's arms and wept.

For a long while they stayed like that, Rachel weeping, the woman rocking her gently in her arms. It was the first human comfort Rachel could ever remember having received, the first shred of humanity. And she clung to it. She clung to it until she felt drunk, and she broke away, wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands and said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please believe me, I'm sorry… I'm just so scared… So alone and so scared…"

The woman said nothing, laid a warm hand on her knee until her sobs had stopped and her eyes were dry. When she lifted her gaze she saw the woman kneeling before her, her expression one of patience, and even more, of friendship; the man stood at the far end of the room, watching. His face was unreadable.

"Where- where are we?" she finally deigned to ask, her voice cracking, hoarse with disuse.

"An old warehouse," the woman answered calmly. "We're safe. For now."

Rachel looked at her. The green eyes, their inherent sadness… that lock of white hair…

"I know you," she murmured haltingly. She paused; neither the man nor the woman said anything and she began again, said, "You knew my name. How did you know my name?"

At the back of the room, the man stirred.

"She remembers her name," he commented softly, yet not without a tinge of sarcasm. "Dat's a start."

The woman – _Chere_ – or whatever he called her – ignored him.

"We were friends once," she explained gently. "Comrades."

Rachel weighed that up.

"Him too?" she asked somewhat sceptically, glancing over the woman's shoulder at the man.

"Him too," she nodded.

Rachel inhaled deeply, let out a breath, fell back onto her haunches.

"We… fought together?" she questioned after a moment. All she had known was fighting. The word 'comrade' only meant those she fought with. The word 'friend'… that held an alien meaning to her. Alien, but strangely comforting. She didn't quite know how to translate it yet.

"Yes," returned the woman.

Rachel nodded. Mostly to herself. If they were comrades she thought maybe she could trust them. Well, the woman anyway. The man she wasn't so sure of.

"Do you… Do you remember anything?" the woman asked at length. "Anything at all?"

It was the question Rachel had asked herself many a time before. Again she searched it. The recesses of her mind. The depths of her psyche. Something was there… moving. Swimming. Hiding just below the surface. Completely out of reach.

"I remember hurting," she said at last, with a certain earnestness that seemed like a child searching for approval from an adult. "And I remember running in the snow." She paused. "And something touching me, and the world going black." She faltered, not knowing what else to say. The man and the woman shared a look. There was communication in that look, subtle but strong – not telepathy. Rachel sensed it, but she didn't think they were even aware of it.

"I remember Bluebeard," she added decidedly.

"Bluebeard?" the woman repeated quizzically, looking back at Rachel.

"The bad man." She shuddered. "The one who made me forget everything. The one who gave me the hurting."

The man and the woman exchanged a look again. Rachel could sense it – the _communication_ between them. She couldn't describe it, didn't know what it was. But it made her hungry. It made her feel awkward and empty and alone. She shuddered again, wrapped her arms around herself, held herself tight, wanting to keep herself together, anchor herself, keep herself from being lost.

"You must be hungry," the woman broke the silence, placing that gentle hand on her knee again. "Thirsty too."

Rachel found she had no words to return this unwarranted kindness. She nodded.

"We'll getcha somethin'," the woman replied, getting to her feet. "Give you somewhere to sleep too. You need some rest."

She moved to go, but Rachel raised her head, spat out on a sudden urge –

"Why're you being so kind?"

The woman paused, looked down at her, eyes sympathetic, said;

"B'cause, sugah, Ah know exactly where you've been."

-oOo-

The bed was not soft and it was not warm, but it was a bed and she couldn't remember the last time she'd slept on one.

Rachel pulled the thin comforter up to her chin and drew in a shaky breath. The mattress she lay on creaked and groaned, betraying her every move, unnerving her. She wanted the silence. She wanted to be invisible, hidden, anonymous. This room – her makeshift room – was dark, but not dark enough. The windows – large windows of an old, run-down warehouse – were dusty, stained, greasy, and let in little light. She was glad of that, at least.

She had slept a little, as much as her nightmares and fragmented memories would let her. She avoided sleep if she could – the nightmares were too visceral, too terrifying, and she would often wake up sweating and shuddering, chased by vestiges of the torment that had shaped her life for so long. _Bluebeard_. Every time she closed her eyes he was there.

She shifted onto her side, facing the door, seeing the crack of light underneath. It was second nature now for her to reach out with her mind, to track down potential danger before it could find her. She hated doing it, but it was automatic. A defence mechanism. It was to keep her safe.

The man and the woman were there. She could sense them, the woman's warmth, the man's white noise. Impossible to penetrate. She thought she could delve into the woman's mind, but she didn't want to. The woman was kind. She didn't believe that she could hurt her. She thought that she could trust her.

And that was the first person she had trusted since… well, ever since she could remember.

They were talking.

She could hear their voices, low and unintelligible, through the door. The man was… prickly. She could discern that much. The woman was… sad. Yes, sad. Sorry for her. Rachel frowned. She didn't want pity. She didn't want people to be sorry for her. She just didn't want to be lost anymore. Didn't want to be alone. She wanted what this couple had. Each other.

She heard footsteps on the other side of the door, coming closer. She froze, the sound of boot steps bringing a familiar surge of horror up inside her. She drew the comforter tighter against her chin with the vague feeling that if she screwed herself up and made herself as small as possible, _no one would see her_.

But they had always come for her.

She'd never been able to hide.

The footfalls stopped outside her door; there was a pause and the door creaked open, gently, quietly. Framed in the light from the room on the other side stood the silhouette of the man. He stopped and looked at her. He saw she was awake, but somehow she couldn't do anything but remain frozen, the way she had done all the times before when they had come for her and done their unspeakable things.

But he seemed to sense her fear. He stepped inside the room, pushed the door quietly behind him so that only a slat of light filled the nearest corner of the room. He seemed to know she didn't like the light.

"S'okay, _petit_," he greeted her in that soft, hard accent. "'M not here t' hurt y'."

He walked over, knelt down beside her, and placed a plate of titbits and a glass of water on the floor by the bed.

She allowed herself to release a pent-up breath. She still found him difficult to trust, but there was something in his voice, in his manner, that communicated to her that he meant her no harm. She let go of the comforter, sat up slowly.

"Thanks," she whispered. He nodded briefly in acknowledgement.

Until she ate she had no idea of how hungry she had been – she ate and drank everything he had put before her. He knelt and watched her silently. While the static wall was still around him, she sensed that he had dropped his guard a little, trying to earn her trust. She also sensed it was something he didn't normally do.

"Why d'you do it?" she asked at last, curiosity getting the better of her.

"Do what?"

"That. Put that wall up?" she drained the rest of the water in the glass and held his gaze, finding that his eyes were less scary than _strange_.

"Was born wit' it, _petit_," he answered after a short pause; but she shook her head.

"Part of it, yes. But some of it y'do consciously. I've never seen anyone who shields so hard."

A lop-sided and humourless smile touched the corner of his lip.

"It gets me by," was all he said.

She didn't push it. She still felt on thin ice with him. Instead she glanced at the jar in the door; the woman was somewhere on the other side – she could feel her.

"What's her name?" she asked on a sudden impulse. "Chere?"

He followed her gaze, this time a real smile touching his lips.

"No. Her name's Rogue."

Rachel turned that over in her head.

"I know her," she murmured at last.

"You know both of us," he told her.

"But I _remember_ her." She stopped and looked back at him, the strange eyes that were somehow also beautiful in that chiselled, angular face… "I don't remember _you_."

The smile turned to a grin; he touched his chest, said: "Gambit."

No. She didn't recognise his name either.

"I'm Rachel," she returned awkwardly – it was her way of making peace. He seemed to sense it.

"I know," was all he said.

An uncomfortable silence followed, which was only broken by Rogue's soft and absent humming from the other side of the door. Something swelled in Rachel's heart – she couldn't remember the last time she'd heard anyone sing.

"I'm sorry," she suddenly said quietly, surprised to feel a lump in her throat. "For hurting her, I mean. I didn't mean to."

"S'okay," he replied, an attempt at nonchalance that didn't quite succeed. "I shouldn't have lost it wit' you de way I did."

"You were only trying to protect her," she whispered back.

On the other side of the door, the humming stopped. Gambit grabbed the glass and the plate, stood.

"Y'finished?" he asked her.

She nodded. Silent.

"Anyt'ing more I can getcha?"

She shook her head. Suddenly she was so tired…

"If'n you need anyt'ing," he offered gently, "jus' shout."

She nodded. He gave her a last, reassuring smile, turned and left.

When he had gone, she sank back onto the bed and slept.

-oOo-

She awoke to a grey morning, to a pallid light shining through the dirty windows, dust motes floating aimless in the pale rays.

Dawn had only just risen.

She pulled the comforter aside and slid out of bed.

She didn't remember much, but she remembered last night. She remembered the woman – _Rogue_ – with her pretty, kind face. And the man, Gambit, with his dark, dark eyes.

Memories swam under the surface of her mind, formless and unarticulated. It was no use. If she knew them – had ever known them – she'd couldn't dredge them up from the depths of her psyche. She was too scared, too fragile. Her mind felt like it might break if she even touched it.

She tiptoed to the door, pulled it open just the tiniest crack.

Gambit was there, sitting on an old wooden chair, leaning over a portable stove boiling coffee.

"Mornin'," he greeted without looking up, and she took a wary step forward murmuring, "Hey…" back.

The aroma of coffee curled around her, bringing a warmth to her stomach that was strange but oddly comforting to her. She glanced around slowly, swallowing the new sensation, taking in the dank, unfurnished room. But for a few battered chairs, stacks of crumbling cardboard boxes, a stained table littered with rusty tools… there was nothing. No real evidence of habitation. In a corner, on a low pallet, lay Rogue, asleep. Gambit's trench coat had been placed carefully over her.

"Is she… Is she still sleeping?" Rachel asked in a murmur; for the first time Gambit raised his eyes, looked at the woman on the pallet.

"Heh. Dat girl could sleep forever an' a day," he quipped humorously, but not without a certain affection.

He said nothing more, but busied himself with the coffee; Rachel watched him for a minute, trying to gather her thoughts, trying to draw together everything that had been said the previous night.

"You…you said you knew me," she finally managed. Again he lifted those dark eyes, stared right at her. His gaze was neutral, not hostile like it had been the night before.

"Oui," he nodded.

"Where… _how_… did we know each other?" she asked, somehow afraid of the answer.

He paused, looked back down at the stove.

"We were X-Men, _p'tit_," he stated simply.

The name stirred something in her, slight, subtle – but there was nothing to hold on to, and she didn't know that she'd even expected there would be.

"I don't remember," she said at last, unable to hide the disappointment in her voice.

"'Course you don't, chere."

"Then… how come I remember _her_?" she questioned earnestly, gazing at the woman on the pallet. That got his attention. He looked up at her again, sharply this time.

"How much do you remember?" he asked her quietly. She sensed more behind the question than was recognisable in his tone.

"I… well, I don't _know_… Impressions… her voice… her face…" She trailed off, closing her eyes, trying to pinpoint what it was and unable to. "I… I don't _know_," she repeated again in sudden frustration. When she looked back at him, she saw that the gravity of his expression had disappeared, the thin line of his lips now betraying a wry smile.

"P'tit, when we were X-Men, I wasn' exactly the kind of guy you'd want t' remember…" He let out a soft laugh; the coffee had boiled, and he took it off the stove. "Don't t'ink you really liked me much, _chere_…" he added deprecatingly. "Rogue… _She_ was more of a friend t' you."

She nodded slightly; in the corner, Rogue stirred into wakefulness.

"Do you guys mind?" she ground out in annoyance, in a voice that was deep and honeyed; again that wry, affectionate smile curled Gambit's lips.

"Good mornin' t' you too, _chere_."

From behind the lapel of his trenchcoat, Rogue's green eyes and upturned nose emerged.

"You could at least gimme a coffee," she remonstrated him petulantly.

"Starbucks ain't open for another hour, chere," he bantered back whilst pouring out the coffee into two tin cups.

"Screw you, Cajun," she muttered belligerently, nevertheless pulling the coat aside and emerging fully from under it. "Hey, sugah," she added in a soft tone when she saw Rachel standing there.

"Hey…" Rachel whispered again, feeling overwhelmed once more, lost in the casual familiarity of their exchanges when everything felt so strange and foreign and just so plain _scary_ to her…

She turned away, her head spinning.

"I need… Is there a bathroom round here?" she questioned softly.

There was a slight pause – again she felt that sense of _communication _pass between them.

"Go out de door and it'll be on de left," came Gambit's voice.

She didn't look back. Turning on her heel, she left.

x

The splash of water, cold and metallic, on her face.

Rachel raised her eyes to the streaky, stained mirror and looked at her face with a dispassionate gaze.

She didn't recognise herself. Dull, green eyes and a child-like face marred by something horribly _adult_ – pain, agony, the unspeakable terror of untold years, things she could barely remember but knew were there. She had been scarred. Physically. He had branded her face when he'd taken her. _Bluebeard_. Black tattoos spiralled round her face in an angry pattern, engulfing her features in something less than human. Her red hair had been shorn roughly, almost to her scalp. It had grown a little since she had escaped, making her look like a used rag doll.

She thought she might have been pretty once. She wasn't sure.

With the palm of her hand she wiped the droplets of water from her face, feeling the tattoos like grooves on her skin. They weren't hers. They were _his_. She wanted them gone. She wanted every trace of him gone, but he was still there, his memory inside her head. She'd never be able to erase it.

She turned away from her reflection, quietly left the bathroom.

From the other room she could hear Rogue and Gambit's voices again, murmuring softly. She was tempted to mentally reach out for them again. Instead she went to the slightly ajar door and hovered by the crack, listening, watching.

"You don't trust her, do you?"

It was Rogue's voice, low and soft; Rachel shifted, squinted, and saw her standing next to Gambit, one of the tin cups in her hand; he was still sitting on the chair, hands on his knees, leaning forward, his hair hiding his expression.

"She was a _Hound_, chere."

"So?"

"So?" He pulled himself straight in his seat, looked up at Rogue with disbelieving eyes. "You know what it is Hounds do, _chere_. And we have no way of knowing just how much Hound there still is in her."

Rogue sank down onto her haunches beside him. When Rachel next heard her voice it was slow, measured.

"Did… Did Essex… Did he ever tell you how deep the brainwashin' went?"

Gambit said nothing for a moment. His face went very still, and Rachel saw his lips tighten and his eyes dart aside.

"_Non_," he returned at last. "I don't t'ink he really _knew_." Those strange, dark eyes moved back to Rogue's face. "De only t'ing he ever said was about de memories breakin' de brainwashin'."

Rogue's laugh was cold. "Heh. Didn't exactly work did it," she remarked sardonically. "You think he fed the Brotherhood false information?"

"_Non_." He shook his head decidedly. "Wasn't in his best interests. He wanted her too bad. I t'ink… I don't t'ink he realised how much of an asset de girl was t' Ahab… How deeply the brainwashin' ran…"

There was a short silence; Rogue set the cup on the floor beside her, said thoughtfully; "We _have_ to trust her. The brainwashin' might not be broken, but it's _breakin' _at least. And she's in pain, Remy. Can't y' see? She needs help."

He looked unconvinced and she reached out a hand, laid it gently over his own.

"Remy, she needs us. She needs our trust if nothin' else. She's been through so much…"

There was that smile again – a crinkle, warm and open. He let out a small laugh, and she said, sadly, quietly; "Y' think Ah'm a fool, dontcha?"

He shook his head, twisted his hand so that her palm now lay in his own. "_Non_, _chere._ Not a fool. Just a child of Xavier, through an' through."

"That's what Raven said to me once," she said in a thin voice, almost inaudible, and he looked at her, his fingers curling around her hand, saying, "Really? Least she got _somet'ing_ right den…" And he lifted her hand, pressed the fingers to his lips and kissed them with such unrestrained passion that Rachel held her breath and looked away, blushing, feeling she was intruding on something she wasn't meant to see without knowing exactly _why_…

Without thinking she pushed the door open, walked into the room.

Rogue stood quickly; Gambit lowered her hand but did not drop it, and she didn't take it back either.

"Feelin' better, sugah?" she asked Rachel in that same kind, motherly voice. Her tone formed such a thickness in Rachel's throat that she could only nod her head.

There was a silence, broken only when Gambit stood suddenly.

"I should go get de stuff," he murmured, half to Rogue, half to himself. He squeezed Rogue's hand once before finally relinquishing it. "Call me if'n you need me,_ chere_."

"Will do," Rogue replied softly. He turned to go, stopped and looked back over his shoulder at Rachel, who was still fighting the lump in her throat.

"Made you a coffee, petit. Y'should drink up 'fore it gets cold."

And with that he was gone.

Rachel stood for a moment, getting used to the stillness of the atmosphere now that his static had gone. Until that moment she hadn't realised just how much her heart had been in her mouth trying to second guess him all that time.

"He doesn't like me, does he," she stated after a long moment. Rogue bent over, picked up the other cup of coffee sitting by the stove and handed it to her.

"It's not that he don't like you, sugah," she explained as Rachel gratefully took the warm cup between her aching fingers. "It's just that trust don't exactly come naturally to him."

Rachel mulled on that, lifting the cup to her lips and tasting the rich beverage for the first time she could remember. Bitter, but… She decided she liked it.

"He trusts _you_," she noted a little defensively. Rogue smiled.

"He's had time to learn to trust me."

"But… if he doesn't trust me… there must be a reason for that," Rachel reasoned testily. "You said we all knew each other… Was I… was I a bad person?" she queried in a sudden rush. Rogue looked at her, her eyes never leaving her, and said evenly, seriously; "No, sugah. Y' weren't a bad person."

There was sincerity in those words, and whatever her own doubts, Rachel knew that Rogue believed them.

"But …" Rachel began uncertainly, "but if I wasn't a bad person, why is he finding it so hard to trust me? Last night he said… he said he would kill me. And even though he said he didn't mean it, he _did_ mean it, I know he did – even if it was only for a split second…"

Rogue was silent. Rachel sensed that even if she could have given an answer, it was too complicated for her even to know where to begin.

"You were never a bad person, Rae," she answered at last, quietly. "_Never_. But somethin' _happened_ to you. Someone – someone called Ahab – hurt you, twisted your mind, forced you to do bad things against your will. But it wasn't your fault."

Suddenly there it was, a little bit falling into place…

"_Bluebeard_…" Rachel whispered, and Rogue nodded.

"You remember."

"No," Rachel shook her head. "Not really. I… I have vague impressions… Images in my head… I know things happened, I see flashes sometimes, links, connections… But I don't really _remember_."

Rogue nodded absently to herself, turned and pulled up a couple of chairs.

"Here. Take a seat." She indicated to the nearest stool, and Rachel sank down on it slowly, still nursing her cup of coffee as Rogue sat down opposite her. There was a gravity in her expression that Rachel hadn't seen before.

"Rae, Ah'm gonna say a few words to yah. Ah wantcha to tell me if they mean anythin' to yah; whether you get anything in your head when you hear them. Think y' can do that?"

She swallowed, nodded.

"Okay," Rogue began. "If you want me to stop, just let me know, okay?"

"Okay."

Rogue's gaze never left her own. It was unnerving, it was daunting, but Rachel felt that she could not but return that unwavering gaze with all the trust that she could muster. And then the first word came.

"Hounds."

Nothing.

"Ahab."

A flash, _something_…

"I don't know," she whispered.

"X-Men."

She shook her head.

"Xavier."

A stirring, but nothing more.

"Jean Grey."

This time the stirring in her mind was subtle, almost imperceptible, but profound; a key turning in the rusty lock of a door that was dustier and creakier than the rest. She looked at Rogue sharply, feeling as if the ground had suddenly moved beneath her, feeling a sudden and inexplicable shift in her mind. Rogue saw the look, the sudden light behind her eyes.

"Do you remember her?" she asked quickly.

"No," Rachel shook her head almost violently; it was only until that moment that she realised she had been holding in a breath, and she exhaled it in a sudden, quivering torrent. There was no revelation, no sense of enlightenment… Just a feeling, a _certainty_, that _something was there…_ "No," she breathed again, disappointed despite herself.

Rogue looked agitated at that, her brow creased, her teeth tugging at her lower lip.

"I'm sorry," Rachel mumbled, wishing she had been able to please this ally, this…friend… as much as her own self.

"Don't be," Rogue comforted her, her face suddenly breaking into that soft, reassuring smile. "These things take time."

She stood to pour more coffee for herself – Rachel watched her, marvelling at her simple beauty. In the months since her escape from Ahab – the man she called Bluebeard – she had seen beauty. On billboards, on magazine stands, on the displays of television stores. But here she was in the presence of real beauty. No makeup, no fancy clothes, no Photoshopped skin or fake smiles. Real beauty was this – unaffected and unadorned. Not for the first time Rachel felt the scars on her face and wondered what lay beneath.

"Want some more?" Rogue asked, turning with the coffee pot in her hand, and Rachel nodded, thinking she could get used to the taste of this.

"So…" she began, once she had the heat of the cup wrapped once more in her hands. "What is it that you two _do_? Why are you here?"

Rogue raised the cup to her lips and grimaced.

"That ain't an easy question to answer, sugah. Ah could tell you a lot of things, but Ah get the feelin' you wouldn't understand." She paused, measuring the earnestness in Rachel's eyes, continued: "We're lookin' for X-Men."

"You keep talking about X-Men," Rachel noted. "Gambit said we were _all_ X-Men. What _are_ X-Men?"

"Mutants."

"Mutants?"

"The powers we have. They're what makes us mutants."

"And what's your power?"

Rogue hesitated a moment.

"Ah can borrow people's mem'ries just by touchin' them."

She seemed to find something uncomfortable in talking about it. Rachel decided not to push it.

"_They_ don't like us, do they? Because we're mutants," she spoke up in a low voice, remembering the way she'd been hunted, the names she'd been called. _Mutie. Scum_. The hate and the disgust with which she was looked upon.

"No," Rogue agreed. "And it's because of that hate that things are the way they are. We – the X-Men… We used our powers to help people, but the people still didn't trust us. One day, a man named Senator Edward Kelly was killed by a group of outlaw mutants. After that, the people who didn't like us wanted to stamp out _all_ of us. They killed most of the super-powered mutants, including the X-Men. Most others got sent to internment camps. The rest of us hide."

"So… you're looking for the X-Men who made it out?" Rachel asked.

"Yes."

"Isn't that like looking for a needle in a haystack?"

Rogue's smile was faint.

"We found _you_, didn't we?"

Rachel nodded slowly, letting it sink in, understanding but not _remembering_.

"And this place?" she questioned further, looking about her.

"We holed up here after we found you. Wouldn't have been easy takin' you into a hotel with those marks on your face. No offence but pretty much _nobody_ takes kindly to Hounds."

"Hounds?"

"It's what you were, sugah," Rogue replied sympathetically. "It's what Ahab made you become. Hounds hunt mutants, sometimes turn them over to the government for processing." She paused, continued quietly; "Sometimes kill them."

Rachel frowned. Somehow, a part of her had known. How else could she account for the nightmares, the shreds of memories where blood and bone had been so prevalent, the raw _instinct_ inside her for the fight?

"I see," was all she said, her tone hoarse.

Any further conversation was interrupted by Gambit's return.

"Got us some breakfast," he announced, emptying a brown paper bag of assorted foodstuffs on the crate that was serving as a coffee table. "Help yourself."

He stood up and threw something at Rogue that Rachel couldn't see – she was too busy going through the food to care. Rogue caught it, stuffed it in her pocket wordlessly.

"I have an idea," Gambit stated, going for the nearly empty coffee pot on the stove.

"And what's that?" Rogue asked, joining Rachel in the scrum for food.

"Dere's dat lake just west of us. Lots of summer vacation homes down dere. Figured we could make use of de fact it ain't summer yet."

"You mean we break in, right." Rogue gave him a look. He shrugged, as if the idea spoke for itself. "But it's somebody's home!" Rogue protested, and he shrugged again.

"Yeah, probably some rich asshole's home… probably don't even stay dere for more den a few weeks a year…"

"That don't make it _right_!"

"Yeah, but t'ink about it. We need a place to figure out what we're going t' do next. A base of operations. Things have got… a little complicated, what with, y'know…" He nodded in Rachel's direction, and Rachel let it slide. She was too busy enjoying the fact that she wasn't eating a stolen apple, or a half rotten sandwich from a trashcan.

"It's not like she's a _kid_ or somethin'!" Rogue huffed at him.

"She _looks_ like a Hound," Gambit insisted. "Dat sure ain't gonna go down well wit' _anyone_, _chere_. Not to mention figurin' out rooms… _Beds_… Three's a crowd an' all dat…" He shot Rogue a meaningful look and she returned a look that half said _shut up_ and half said _you've got a point_. Rachel chewed on a croissant, understanding the words but little else.

"All I'm sayin' is," Gambit continued after a long pause, "is dat dat girl needs to be somewhere she gonna be safe. I don't t'ink anywhere where dere's gonna be people around is gonna cut it."

"Oh, Ah _suppose_ so!" Rogue exploded on a breath. "But don't you think we should be askin' her before we make any decisions? She _is_ right here, yah know!"

They both looked at her. Rachel stopped, mid chew, already working on her second pastry with relish.

"You're askin' me?" she said in surprise, her mouth still full. No one had ever asked her opinion of anything before.

"Sure," Gambit returned. "We get outta town, hunker down for a few days in some holiday home down by de lake. Whaddaya t'ink?"

Rachel swallowed down the rest of her mouthful.

"You mean there'll be no people there?" she queried eagerly.

"Well… nowhere near as many as dere are here…"

It sounded like a dream come true. She didn't even have to think.

"Let's go!" She thought a moment, added: "_Please_."

Gambit laughed out loud. It was short and shallow, as if laughter was the sort of thing that didn't come easily to him.

"No pleases, _p'tit._ No thank yous neither. Not till we're somewhere safe, leastways."

"But I've _never_ felt this safe before…" she protested, saying the most honest words she could remember; but he shook his head.

"Don't get complacent. It won't last. Not in dis world. You're a mutant, _p'tit_. One t'ing's for sure – someone will_ always_ be out t' kill you."

-oOo-


	11. Home

**: TWIST OF FATE :**

**_PART TWO: _RACHEL**

**(11) - Home -**

It was only the city that never seemed to sleep.

The country was different; when night fell there was silence, and other senses took over. It was a strange new world where the only light was starlight, where colours were shades of black and blue, and where the scents were clean and fresh.

Rachel stood by the bike and shivered in the coolness of the night air. There was nothing to break the breeze from touching her skin; some distance away, she could hear the _lap, lap, lapping_ of the lake upon the shore. She could see it, down a small incline to her right, a dark expanse of indigo that caught only faintly the light of the moon. Up to her left, a row of detached houses stood, looking out onto the water. Not a single one showed signs of habitation.

"Why don't we just go into that one?" Rachel asked of Rogue, who was going through her pack on the back of the bike. It'd been a long trip – Gambit had driven Rachel up to the lake, then gone back to pick Rogue up. Rachel had hidden in a small wooded copse by the water, waiting for them to return. She hadn't minded. She wasn't afraid of the dark, or of the animals that lurked in it. What she feared was people, and the harm they could do to her. Animals didn't hurt, unless they were scared you were going to attack them. She understood their line of thinking. She thought she had more in common with them than anything else.

"Remy said somethin' about the security bein' too tight," the older woman explained. She pulled out some gum from her bag, offered it to Rachel. After moment, she decided to take it.

"I didn't see anything," she muttered.

"Yeah," Rogue replied, stuffing the packet away again, "but Remy's got way more experience in this kinda thing than you or Ah have."

"Why?"

"He's a thief. He's used to breakin' into places."

"Oh."

It hadn't seemed right to Rachel, to intrude on another person's property. On the other hand, she had learned from experience that being able to break into places and leave no trace could be a useful commodity. For people like her, it had meant the difference between having a roof over your head and sleeping rough. It could also mean the difference between a square meal and a supper made of garbage you'd just picked up off the floor.

"So," Rogue asked her conversationally. "How'd you get here? To this part of the world, Ah mean. Can't have been easy makin' the journey from New York…"

She didn't really want to talk about it.

"I walked. Hitched rides. Jumped the train when I could…" She paused. "How'd you know I came from New York? Is that where the X-Men lived? Where _I_ lived?"

Rogue looked momentarily uncomfortable.

"Yes," she said at last.

"I wish I hadn't left then," Rachel brooded. "I wish I could've seen the place where we all lived…"

"There ain't much left of it, sugah," Rogue replied sadly, just as Remy rejoined them.

"Found the perfect one," he greeted them jovially. "Managed t' take out de security – should be a piece o' cake gettin' in."

"Ah still don't like this," Rogue grumped uncharitably.

"You know it makes sense," Gambit said lightly.

"I'm hungry," Rachel piped up; chewing the gum was getting her stomach juices churning, and her abdomen was complaining noisily.

"You sure get hungry a lot," Gambit commented comically, before turning and leading them up to their next new hideout.

It proved, as Gambit had said, relatively easy to gain access to the house. A few quick movements with his skeleton keys and the front door was open as if by magic. Inside it was quiet and dark. There was barely a sign of habitation; all the furniture had been covered up in white sheets, everything was clean and smelled brand new. There was nothing in the fridge, only a couple of cartons and a large packet of chips in the cupboard. Rachel grabbed the chips before anyone else had the wherewithal to do so and went exploring.

Rooms and rooms and rooms and a huge conservatory. A swimming pool in the back yard and a small library in a little annex filled with books. Rachel took it all in with wonder. Never in her whole life had she seen such luxury. What kind of people owned this place? She felt certain they couldn't be mutants.

"Hey, Rae!" she heard Rogue call down the stairs to her. "Come see this!"

She left the library reluctantly and trudged up the huge beech staircase. There were several doors on the landing, and she stood, looking about uncertainly till Rogue's head popped out of one.

"Come and have a look," she called out before ducking her head back inside.

It was the bathroom. It had to have been the biggest bathroom Rachel had ever seen. Everything was made of glass and chrome with in-built lighting. In pink. The bath itself was a stupendous size.

"Look at this!" Rogue exclaimed gleefully, pressing a button on the side of the bath. A buzzing sound began to emanate from it, and Rachel looked nonplussed.

"It's a jacuzzi!" Rogue explained blissfully. "Ah haven't seen one of these in _years!_"

Gambit, who'd been leaning on the nearby radiator watching this little scene from the sidelines, looked amused.

"Dis should be interestin'," he observed, more to himself than anybody else.

Rachel moved back onto the landing, a little bewildered by these transports of delight. She poked her head round a few doors, seeing a kid's nursery, a storeroom and a master bedroom. On the other side of the landing was a small room, done up in pink and red. Rachel flipped on the light switch and looked around. It was a little girl's room. Princesses lined the walls in gaudy murals, and a single teddy bear sat waiting patiently on the bed.

Rachel stood in the doorway and stared. She felt a sudden and powerful communion with this place, and was surprised to find sudden tears smarting her eyes. Where they had come from was a mystery to her – but somehow, they felt right.

"You like it?" Rogue asked from behind her, looking in over her shoulder.

She nodded soundlessly in reply.

"Can I sleep here tonight?" she asked in a whisper.

"Every night if you want, sugah," Rogue replied, and Rachel couldn't help it – she flung her arms round the woman and cried.

-oOo-

The best stocked place in the house turned out to be the basement-cum-wine cellar.

Gambit emerged from down below with a bottle of red in hand, a triumphant expression on his face.

"That's stealin'!" Rogue said in an accusatory tone, but he seemed unfazed.

"C'mon, _chere_. Dey ain't gonna miss _one_ bottle."

They went into the lounge, drew the curtains and, at Rachel's insistence, turned on the faux log fire. No lights to give their presence away. They sat on the white shag rug in front of the hearth with Rogue hoping out loud that they didn't spill anything because red wine stains were a nightmare to get out and she didn't want to have to deal with it. Gambit hushed her and poured out three glasses, passed them round.

"Remy, yah ain't tryin' t' debauch the poor gal, are yah?" Rogue objected, as Rachel took her glass curiously.

"C'mon, Rogue, it's justa glass of wine!" He turned to Rachel with a smile. "Go on – try it."

She sipped the dark red liquid, just to prove Rogue wrong more than anything else; the next moment she was coughing and spluttering at the fire in her throat. Neither Rogue nor Gambit could help laughing.

"That. Is. _Gross_!" Rachel declared in a rasp once she'd got some semblance of her voice back. "Totally disgusting! How can you drink it?"

"Years and years of practice," Gambit answered humorously, eyes twinkling. "I started young. Every Sunday, it was, when _mon pere _would take us t' de church… De priest would give it t' all de kids in de house…"

"_Stop it, Remy_!" Rogue cried breathlessly between chuckles, and;

"They gave it to _kids?!_" Rachel gasped in incredulous disgust, which set Gambit off again.

"Don't listen to a word he says, sugah," Rogue warned her conspiratorially, "he's teasin' you, hon."

"It's true!" Gambit insisted, and Rachel couldn't help smiling despite the fact that she knew they were _both_ poking fun at her. To be surrounded by the sound of people laughing, joking, _wanting_ to treat her just like any normal, human being… It was more than she could've hoped for in her wildest dreams. This was it. The best time of her life. In the warmth, with a roof over her head, food to eat, water to drink… And with friends to keep her company. _Friends_.

She watched silently as the two before her fell into the witty repartee she had so quickly become accustomed to, taking in everything she saw. Their familiarity, their closeness. Again, that strange sense of their connection, the one they weren't even aware of. Their intimacy was a comfort to her. These were all dreams she had never thought possible in her entire life.

They sat there in the light of the fire, till the darkness fell, and their laughter was spent. Rachel, sitting closest to the flames, felt the heat coax sweat from her pores; but after all the years of cold and damp and misery, the fire was a joy to her, and she wasn't inclined to have it turned off. She sat as close to it as she dared, as if protecting her own little territory from the trespassing of others.

Rogue and Gambit seemed to sense this. They sat a little apart from her, a little island of their own, comfortable in their closeness. Rachel didn't mind. That they let her in this close to whatever little world they inhabited, this _past_ she was supposed to have shared with them yet couldn't remember… It was more than enough.

"Tell me about the X-Men," she asked them, taking a sip from her wine glass because there was nothing else to drink, and she didn't want to leave the fire. She decided the taste wasn't so bad after all. Maybe she could get used to it.

"What do you want to know?" Rogue replied, her expression soft in the glow of the firelight.

"I don't know." She lifted her shoulders. "Just… the people, I guess. Sounds like we were one big family."

"We were."

"How many of us were there?"

"There were a lot of us, all over the world. Some came, some went. Some of us stayed at the mansion."

"The mansion?"

"It belonged to a man called Charles Xavier. He was the one who brought us all together, taught us to use our powers for good, to make a difference."

Rachel stared at the flames leaping in the hearth. Xavier… it was a name Rogue had said before. But when she heard it she felt nothing.

"Guess we didn't make the kind of difference he wanted us to," she quipped sardonically.

"There were other mutants who didn't use their powers for good. The statics were already afraid of us. Ah guess they'd rather see the bad things we do, than the good. Anyway," and Rogue sighed, "by the time the shit hit the fan it didn't really matter who was good and who was bad anymore."

"And they got us all killed," Rachel finished quietly.

"Most of us. Not all."

There was a faraway memory… a faint impression of blood and screams and gunshots and tears. But she'd witnessed them all so many times it was hard to tell whether they were the memories of an X-Man or of a Hound.

"So what made you join?" she asked Rogue after a momentary silence. "Why'd you end up putting your life on the line for the statics?"

"Ah started out as one of the bad guys, believe it or not," Rogue explained, while Gambit shared out the rest of the wine between the two of them. "But that kinda life… it wasn't for me. By the time Ah figured out Ah'd rather split, there wasn't much else Ah knew except for fightin'. Fightin' for the good guys instead of the bad seemed the obvious choice t' make. And," she hesitated, as though the next part was hard to admit, "Ah guess a part of me was just bein' selfish. Ah wanted to see if Xavier could help me too."

"Help you do what?" Rachel probed.

"Her powers," Gambit spoke softly, reaching out and touching Rogue's hair, brushing away a white lock of hair and tucking it behind her ear. Rachel gave a questioning look and Rogue continued: "When Ah first manifested mah powers, Ah couldn't switch them off. Anyone Ah touched, Ah'd steal their powers and their memories and they coulda ended up in a coma. Ah thought… maybe Xavier could've helped me."

From the way she said it, Rachel could tell that he hadn't. She could also tell that talking about it made Rogue uncomfortable, and she didn't want to push it. So she looked at Gambit, who was running the joint of his forefinger gently down the side of Rogue's neck, his expression absent.

"What about you? Why did you join?" she quizzed him – and it wasn't idle conversation. The few times he'd spoken to her, it'd never been about himself. And she knew that if she'd tried to read him through other means, all she would've come up against was that static wall. He was curious to her. She couldn't say that she liked or disliked him, but she found him… _interesting_.

"Dat's a story you mayn't want t' hear, _p'tit_," he returned with a tight smile; Rogue turned and looked at him full on, and Rachel saw that she wanted to hear the answer to the question too. He dropped his hand from her neck, sensing that whatever he said, his touch would no longer be welcome. His smile grew wry and he picked up his wineglass, lifted it to his lips.

"Let's just say I joined up for less than honourable reasons. And when I walked out, I was hella confused." He emptied the glass, and when he put it down again he was looking at Rachel like it was a challenge.

"Were you one of the bad guys then?" she spoke up, surprised but not shocked by this revelation. There _was_ something about him after all, slippery and sly and just plain _untrustworthy._

"I don't believe in good and bad guys," he waved his hand as if to brush aside her words. "Angels and demons… Issa crazy notion. Poppa always told me, people only ever do anyt'ing for two reasons – love or fear. Love or fear somet'ing hard enough and you'll do anyt'ing to get it or get rid of it, good or bad."

"So… Statics want to kill us 'cos they fear us… right?" Rachel murmured.

"You smart." Gambit's grin was lopsided.

"So why did _you_ join the X-Men then, Remy?" Rogue asked of him quietly; she'd been looking at him closely all the way through his speech, and her eyes were still on him now. Until that moment he'd avoided her gaze; but now he returned it, answered softly: "I t'ink de bigger question is why I left feelin' confused."

There was another moment of _communication_ between them as they looked at one another in silence, a moment which Rachel was, once again, not a part of.

"So how do I know I can trust you?" she couldn't help interrupting them. Remy looked aside at her, not angry, not even offended, but… matter-of-fact.

"You don't."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?"

"You can trust him," Rogue assured her from the sidelines, tugging the neckline of his shirt affectionately. "Ah'll vouch for him."

"You're biased," Rachel pointed out archly (realising simultaneously that somewhere in the past few minutes she'd drained her glass of wine).

"Ah know. But someone's gotta trust him, otherwise he'll get lonely."

He was completely unfazed by the teasing.

"You girls are both drunk. Looks like it's time for me to clear dese away." And so saying he picked up the glasses and went off into the kitchen.

"Did we make him mad?" Rachel whispered after he'd gone.

"No." Rogue's smile was wide. "Just embarrassed him a little, Ah think. Poor baby." She chuckled a little as she stood. "You should get some sleep, sugah. It's been a long day."

"Just a little longer," Rachel replied, turning back to the fire.

"Suit yourself."

It was just as Rogue got to the door that Rachel stopped her.

"Wait – Rogue?"

"Hm?"

The flames danced before her eyes, warm and close and yet so far away, always just out of reach…

"When I was with the X-Men… Did I have another family? Did I have a mom and a dad? I mean, I must've done, but… Well, did you know them?"

She felt Rogue's uncertainty as well as she was able to hear it in her silence. The edges of her psychic tendrils could feel _that _much.

"Your mom and dad… They were X-Men, sugah," she replied at last, and the sadness in her voice said it all.

"And they're dead, right?" she murmured, keeping her eyes on the fire.

"Yeah, Rae. They're gone."

She didn't have to be told to know. She'd felt it in her bones a long time ago.

She sat by the fire for a long time after the others had gone upstairs, watching and waiting for something in the flames that she didn't quite know.

-oOo-

The few days they'd intended to spend at the holiday house turned into weeks.

They settled into a routine of breakfasts and lunches and dinners, stories by the fireside and furtive trips into town. When they weren't together, Rachel would explore the surrounding land, whilst Rogue read romance books and Gambit stuck to his laptop. Sometimes Rogue would grab Rachel when she was bored and they'd raid the clothes in the master bedroom wardrobe, competing to see who could come up with the silliest combinations until they were bent double with laughter. Sometimes Gambit would poke his head round the door to see what on earth all the fuss was about. Invariably, he'd roll his eyes at them and leave.

Whatever this languid routine was, it was the closest thing to 'family' that Rachel had, and she cherished it. Slowly she began to heal, in whatever semblance that was possible for a girl who had no memory. There was nothing for her to miss, nothing to trammel her to the past. All she had was the nightmares, and here, in this place – they almost seemed never to have existed at all.

During her days spent wandering the lake and its environs, she found the courage to practice with her powers. Out here, with barely another sole to stumble upon her, it was safe to do so. Every day she would cast her net out wider and wider; she would touch upon the fleeting existences of the birds and the beasts, their simple and sheltered lives. There was nothing here that could hurt her or make her cry. She didn't care what Gambit said. She was safe here, safer than she'd ever been. What she saw with her mind was proof there was nothing to fear here.

And sometimes… sometimes she would practice her powers on them, when they weren't looking or listening and had let their guard down. When they would talk to one another in low voices, or steal a kiss. The sweet warmth and lightness of their minds as they touched captivated her. She found herself wanting something she'd never seen and never known, that she could put no name to. It would make her cheeks flame and her heart beat fast. In the bewildering heat of its haze she would slink away with a new and powerful ache inside her, one she wasn't sure how to feel, not in this place called _alone_.

-oOo-

Summer was making its face known early this year.

Its light sparkled on the lake like crystals glimmering in an ocean of blue.

Rogue picked up a stone from the grass and threw it into the water. The ripple effect made the light flash and flicker before settling back into a glacial smoothness.

"Well this takes me back," she remarked softly to herself.

"Where?" Rachel asked, as they continued walking on the shore, side by side.

"To the mansion," Rogue replied nonchalantly. "There used to be a lake just like this in the grounds. You and Ah were walkin' there, just like this, the day it all went t' shit."

Rachel did not respond. She felt as though she should remember, and though the site of the lake and the sound of the birdsong and the warmth of the sun stirred something in her, there was nothing substantial in any of it.

"So what's your name?" Rachel found herself asking her companion curiously.

"Huh?"

"Your name. You've gotta have a name, right? Gambit does. But he never calls you anything else but 'chere'."

The smile on Rogue's lips was strained.

"Just call me Rogue, sugah. Ah don't use my real name anymore."

"Why?"

"Because… because whenever Ah think of the person Ah was when Ah had that name… Ah'm glad Ah'm not _her_ anymore."

They carried on walking in silence, Rachel wondering what on earth it all meant, half understanding and half not at all. They were interrupted only by the soft _ping_ of Rogue's phone. She checked it with a small smile on her face.

"Gambit?" Rachel asked her.

"Yeah." She slipped the phone back into her pocket. "He's on his way back. Says he's got some stuff to cook up some culinary masterpiece tonight."

"Good," Rachel replied, and her tummy rumbled with the thought of it. "I'm so hungry, and the food he cooks rocks."

"Compared to mine, you mean," Rogue noted wryly.

"Yeah. Sorry."

Rogue gave her a curious look.

"What?" Rachel asked.

"Nothin'. Just… lately, you seem to get more like 'you' every single day."

She didn't know what to say to that. She certainly didn't _feel_ more like her, since she didn't really_ know_ what 'her' was like… But she did feel _different_. Less… in turmoil. And that was a start.

"You and Gambit…" she asked the question that had been pulling at her for a while now, "are you… married?"

To her surprise, Rogue burst into laughter.

"Married?" she repeated after catching her breath. "Nope. Not married, sugah. Not even halfway."

"But…you two seem so… _close_…" She fumbled with what she was trying to explain, embarrassed.

"In some ways, maybe." She picked up another stone absently and threw it into the water. This time it skidded, once, twice, thrice, before sinking into the depths. "Bein' close and bein' married don't always go hand in hand, Rae. But Ah know Ah want to be with him. Always."

She still didn't get it. Not really.

"My mom and dad were married," she spoke at last. Rogue glanced at her quickly.

"Yes."

"And were they close like you and Gambit are?" she probed eagerly, hungrily even.

Rogue stopped and turned to her. There was a sadness in her eyes.

"Yes, Rae, they were. Very close. Remy and Ah… what we have can't even compare." She paused, and Rachel stared up at her, waiting, wanting _more_… "They were psychically bonded. They could share their thoughts, their feelings, in ways most people can't even begin to imagine. When your mom died, your dad was devastated. He was… he wasn't ever the same again."

Rachel frowned.

"I thought mom died with dad. When the military attacked the mansion," she half-whispered.

"No." Rogue shook her head slowly. "She died before that. In a battle against a guy called the Vanisher. She saved us all… But she died in the process. You and Scott… your dad… you both had each other. Ah'm not sure that it was enough though."

They began to walk again, Rachel again thinking that there were some things she should remember, things that were essential to her being and yet so very far away. She couldn't understand it. Whilst a Hound, she'd always been aware of her past life, she'd still had _memories_… But somewhere along the way, they'd all disappeared, leaving only the nightmares and the finest of traces.

"You and Gambit _do_ have a bond," she spoke at last. Rogue stared at her, a look of disbelief and confusion, and Rachel hastened to explain; "I can feel it, sometimes. It's not a psychic one, but it's _there_. It's …fuzzy. Kinda tacky. It's not made of the same stuff as you get on the astral plane."

Rogue stopped and stared at her again, this time with a different look in her eyes that Rachel couldn't recognise.

"_Threads_," was all she said.

"Huh?"

"Threads." Rogue looked aside, a slight breeze touching her hair, struggling with something she wasn't sure how to put into words. "My momma once told me that some of us are bonded by the Timestream. That some of us are brought together, again and again, to _do_ something, to make something _happen_… She told me that Remy and Ah…" She paused, her brow furrowing, as if she didn't understand it. When she looked back to Rachel, there was a slight smile on her face. "She told me your mom and dad were bonded in every future she looked in."

"I don't understand," Rachel returned earnestly, hearing the words and catching their flavour, but feeling them as though they had been spoken in an alien language.

"Ah don't think Ah really do either," Rogue confessed, her smile now wry.

Any further conversation was interrupted by the sound of Gambit's motorcycle returning up by the houses. Rogue gazed up in the direction of the sound.

"You're hungry, right?" she grinned. "Maybe if you go ask him for a snack, he might just letcha take a li'l somethin'…"

She began to walk up the hill to the house, and Rachel sensed that she was reluctant to elaborate any further on what her 'momma' had said. She trudged after Rogue, panting a little, realising just how hungry she really was.

"Rogue!" she called out, and the other woman looked back at her without stopping.

"Yeah?"

"Rogue… we're friends, right? I can stay with you guys forever, can't I?"

And Rogue turned and bestowed her with the warmest smile she'd ever known.

"Of course, sugah. For as long as you want."

She held out a hand, and the two of them walked up the hill together, back to the house, each with an arm about the other's shoulder.

-oOo-

She ran down the stairs, leaping over the last few steps in her excitement, and sped into the kitchen, coming to a stop with a skid.

"Look what I can do!" she exclaimed, as excited as a child who'd learned to ride its first bike.

Rogue looked up from her breakfast, Gambit from his laptop and his coffee. They stared. And stared.

"Neat, huh?!" Rachel cried excitedly.

Rogue pushed back her seat and walked up to her, only stopping to reach out and touch her face. There were no marks on her skin. Ahab's tattoos had gone.

"How did you do it?" Rogue breathed in wonder.

"Psychically," Rachel explained proudly. "They're really still there, but I can make it so that other people can't see them. Ain't it cool? Huh, huh?"

Rogue's face broke into a wide smile.

"Oh mah God, that means you can go out to the town and stuff…"

"I know!"

And they hugged each other, jumping up and down like crazy school kids.

Gambit's expression was muted. He picked up his cup and took a sip, considering the two of them with the look of a parent considering a stranger's errant children.

"Whaddya think, Gambit?" Rachel asked him once she and Rogue had calmed down. She was determined to get a reaction out of him. "Aren't you happy for me? Aren't you?"

Gambit set his cup down slowly.

"Sure I am, _p'tit_," he answered in measured tones. "Won't be long before you get your mem'ries back too, _chere_."

His words seemed to have had an effect on Rogue. She went very still.

"Why do you have to make everything so _horrible!_" Rachel railed at him, but Rogue broke off any argument she would have started, took her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes with a fond smile, saying: "You're beautiful, sugah. You look just like your momma."

She couldn't help but break into a grin. She couldn't wait for the day when she'd be able to put a face to the name 'Jean Grey'. And maybe it wouldn't look so very different from her own. She didn't care what Gambit said now.

One day she _would_ remember, and everything would be good again.

-oOo-

Later that evening she dozed on the sofa whilst they sat in front of the TV.

They never put on the news channels when she was there, just in case she saw something that would set her off. She didn't know what it was they were watching instead. Rogue had her feet up in Gambit's lap while he massaged them. He liked to touch her – he was nearly always doing it, mentally if he wasn't physically. Rachel liked to think it was because he'd spent so long not being able to touch her. Making up for lost time – it was all so heady, so romantic to her. How much time would _she_ have to make up for?

She lay there, bathed in the glow of the TV, cradled by the warmth their embrace emitted. Everyday she was getting stronger, getting more adept with her powers. Pretty soon she would be able to reclaim her memories, she felt sure of it. And then… and then…

_And then she's ripping open the little box with greedy fingers, the gold and silver paper flitting to the floor in shimmering shreds, and she opens it up and sees… two stud earrings, red enamel in the shape of stars. She looks up at mom and dad with shining eyes, says excitedly:_

_ "Does this mean I can get them pierced then, mom? Does it?"_

_ Dad laughs, puts his arm round mom's shoulder, says:_

_ "Well, we were gonna wait till you were at least ten…"_

_ And mom says;_

_ "Hush, Scott, don't tease her!" She gets on her knees, and Rachel sees beautiful green eyes as mom says softly; "Yes, hon, you can get them done. But it does mean you have to take care of them too, once you get them pierced. Clean them every day, and the earrings too, when you change them."_

_ "I will, mom, I will, thank you!"_

_ And she throws her arms around her and hugs her tight, and then—_

She woke up.

It was still dark in the room, except for the light of the TV. Her head was heavy, as though she were drunk; her mind flickered over her dream, trying to hold onto every detail she had seen. It hadn't felt like a dream. It had felt like… a memory. She was _sure_ it was. The clarity, the detail – her mother's eyes…

Her mother.

She felt tears sting the back of her eyelids.

"We should leave soon."

It was Gambit's voice, low and hushed, sounding from the other couch. They were still sitting there – she could sense them.

"Gettin' itchy feet, sugah?" Rogue's lazy magnolias voice murmured back.

"I was t'inkin' more dat it'll be summer soon. Don't wanna be here when de owners show up, neh?"

"Hm." Her tone was unconvinced. "Yeah, but you're gettin' itchy feet too, admit it."

"Yeah, well… Sittin' round playin' happy families really ain't my scene, _chere_. You know dat. Anyways, de sooner we get to Chicago and find Logan…"

"Yeah, Ah know. But you gotta admit, it's kinda nice. Bein' here like it was at the mansion, like everythin's normal again…"

"I guess."

There was a silence, during which Rachel, lulled by the soft light and warmth of the fire, nearly fell back into sleep, when:

"What are you gonna do when she remembers?" Gambit said.

"Remembers what?" Rogue asked in a more subdued tone, and despite the heaviness of her head, the pull of sleep, Rachel somehow knew that it was _her_ they were talking about…

"You know. What happened down at de Hound Pens…"

Rogue was quiet a long moment. When she spoke her voice was hesitant.

"It's up to her what she wants to do with that knowledge…"

"You have a lot of faith in her goodwill," Gambit returned with that same sarcasm that Rachel had heard so often and had prevented her from ever truly becoming close to him.

"She's a good person, Remy."

"Everyone's a good person to you. But even good people can be hurt and angry, _chere_. It ain't just what you took, Rogue. It's everyt'ing dat came after dat. What she suffered because she couldn't remember. How d'you t'ink she's gonna take dat?"

Rogue made no reply, and as the silence fell Rachel sank ever closer into another slumber…

"She can sense the Timestream again, you know," Rogue's voice finally spoke, as if from very far away. "She told me the other day; she can sense it. It was the _web_ Destiny was talkin' about… …"

And yes, she could see it. Sleep catching her in its web, all soft seduction, and she let it take her, she_ buries her head in her pillow and tries not to cry, tries desperately to hold the tears back because dad can't be strong, _he_ can't hold back the tears, so she has to be strong for both of them._

_ "Why did you have to go, mom," she whimpers. "Why did you have to go and leave us all alone?"_

_ And the next moment she feels a hand on her hair, soft and soothing and gentle and _familiar_, and she thinks she's dreaming when she hears that same loving voice:_

_ "But I'm not gone, darling Rachel. I'm with you all the time. You just can't see me anymore, that's all. In time…"_

_ "It's not you, it's not you, mom, you're dead, they showed you lying in the coffin, you're dead and I'm dreaming I'm dreaming I'm dreaming…"_

_ And she closes her eyes tight shut she's so scared of _ghosts_… But the voice answers her and she can't block it out, she hears every single word:_

_ "Yes, I'm dead, Rachel. And I wish it had never been this way. It means you'll have to grow up so quickly now, and you are so very young, my dear daughter. But you'll understand, soon. The Phoenix will come to you, she'll show you everything, as she once showed me."_

_ And the room lights up so bright, with the flame of a fire that does not scorch and does not burn; it is the flame she had seen so often around her mother, and she realises it _is_ her, it _is_ her mom…_

_ She opens her eyes and rolls over, but where she expects to see her mother sitting next to her on the bed she sees a great conflagration, burning so bright she thinks she should be blinded, but somehow she is not scared, she is not frightened… She reaches out into the flames and they do not touch her, and she sees a face in the fiery tongues, the face of a bird, and she snatches her hand back, and _that_ is when the fear seeps in._

_ "Do not be afraid, child," says the fire, in voice that is both her mother's and another's. "The Phoenix watches. The Phoenix understands."_

_ "What… What are you?" she asks, and the fire replies:_

_ "I am life. I am eternity. We are one and the same, Rachel Summers, as we are with Jean Grey. We shall meet again, in Time, and when we do we shall journey onwards together. Towards the End."_

_ And with that, the fire vanishes._

-oOo-


End file.
